Different Days

by Vicki Berger Erwin

  After another round of thank-yous, Rosie and her parents left the office.

  “I feel much better,” said Papa, stretching his arms to the sky.

  “And I will feel better when we find work,” said Mama.

  “The shop is still there. I went to see it …”

  “Rosie, the government will not let me work with radios just as they will not let Etta have her cameras again,” said Papa. “There is fear we will give secrets to the Germans. They do not believe with our German blood and German name we can be loyal Americans.”

  “But now, we shall eat ice cream and celebrate being with our kinder once again,” Mama said, putting an arm around Rosie and the other around Freddie. “That is what matters.”

  Rosie hadn’t had ice cream since the war began and she could already taste it as they headed toward the nearest restaurant.

  Once the family had their ice cream, Papa led them to a nearby park where they sat near a Banyan tree so broad and twisted, Rosie thought an entire family could move in and make their home. She relaxed and soaked in the sunlight and warmth of being with her family.

  “There is one other thing Papa and I want to discuss with you,” Mama said, licking her ice cream cone and looking at Papa, not Rosie or Freddie.

  Rosie tensed.

  “Mama and I would like to ask you, both of you but especially you, Rosie, to not bring up the subject of our internment again. No questions, no discussion, no more talk about it …”

  “But Papa, don’t you want to know why?” Rosie asked, not able to understand how he could push the worst thing that had ever happened to them into the background and act like it had never happened.

  “We accept that it did happen. We believe it happened because we were German and because people grow afraid in times of war. And we, your mama and I, choose to let it go. We must pick up our bootstraps, go forward, and achieve.”

  “There must be a reason …”

  “Rosie, for your papa and I, please, we want no more said. Lock it away. Forget about it. It is over and done.”

  For Mama and Papa, Rosie would try, but there would always be a part of her seeking an explanation, a part of her that wanted to know.

  Chapter 37

  Rosie’s schoolbag was heavy with books. Her new teacher was big on homework. It had been hard to leave her new friends behind and change to yet a third school when the family moved to the house near Diamond Head. The move did mean she didn’t have to see either Apikalia or Mrs. Smith every day.

  Even before she opened the door to the house, Rosie heard laughter coming from inside. Auntie Palu had come to visit!

  Before Rosie could drop her schoolbag, Auntie Palu had her wrapped in a warm hug. “Auntie! Leilani! I am so glad to see you! How are the boys?”

  “Oh, they worry me! Both my boys are on a ship in the ocean, fighting the Japs. They thought to join the Army but decided it would be impossible to live away from the water and enlisted in the Navy instead. They are very brave.”

  “I told Auntie to leave their addresses with us and we would write them letters,” Mama said.

  “They would love to hear from you! And little Freddie, they asked me if he had learned to surf yet.”

  “He has! Our friend, Kam, taught him. Freddie is so good! Me, not so good.” Rosie laughed. It felt so familiar to be chatting with Auntie.

  “Your friend Kam, eh?” Leilani teased. “Is he also helping you study for the big spelling championship coming up?”

  “I was hoping we could do that together,” Rosie said. She’d easily won the spelling bee at her newest school and would be competing against her friend at the championship. But they’d agreed they’d be happy if either of them won, so long as the winner was one of them.

  “I brought you haupia and poi and pork from our luau. You must miss our Hawaiian foods!”

  “Not the poi,” Rosie said honestly and Auntie laughed.

  “You said when you no longer were needed to watch Freddie, you would come with us to the Army base to serve food and aloha spirit to the boys there,” Auntie Palu reminded her. “I am holding you to that.”

  “It’s fun,” said Leilani. “They all want to dance!”

  “I’m a terrible dancer,” said Rosie.

  “So are most of them!”

  “I’ll try,” said Rosie.

  “We will pick you up on Saturday,” said Auntie Palu. “Wear your dancing shoes!”

  “Auntie brought some other things you might be interested in as well,” Mama said. “I will let her show you while I go check on the kinder.” She rolled her eyes. Rosie knew Mama had her hands full with the little ones she cared for every day in the new kindergarten she’d opened.

  “Your mama showed me your quilting. You are doing beautiful work,” said Auntie Palu. “I am very proud of you.”

  “I like doing it. And we have to replace the quilts we lost when …” Rosie made herself say nothing else.

  Auntie nodded as she picked up a large basket and pulled out a piece of paper. “Fill this out,” she said.

  Rosie read the paper. “Auntie Palu, I’m not good enough to enter a quilting contest!”

  “You are. I have an application for your mama, too. And I will also enter. But in an advanced category.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Rosie promised. If she did win, it was something to add to her Punahou application, a champion of something not many other students could claim.

  “And what about this,” said Auntie Palu. She pulled a quilt out of the basket. The colors and the fabric reminded Rosie of the Queen’s quilt, but it couldn’t be.

  “I visited my friend at the Royal Hawaiian Quilt Shop in downtown Honolulu to buy supplies. And what do I see hanging on the wall? Your mama’s Queen’s quilt! I know it is,” Auntie said excitedly, “because who helped your mama sew that crazy quilt? Auntie Palu did.

  “I say to my friend, that is not your quilt! She tell me she buy it fair and square and I argue that it was taken from my beloved neighbor, my favorite mama of Rosie and Freddie, and I know because my aloha spirit is in that quilt!”

  Rosie could hear and see Auntie in her mind scolding the woman in the quilt shop. She had seen Auntie do the same thing in fact when she saved their Hawaiian quilt.

  “And I reach up and unpin that quilt and fold it up. I throw some money on the counter and bring it home with me. I am happy to return it to you.” Auntie sat back and wiped a line of sweat off her forehead.

  Rosie spread the quilt on the floor and examined it carefully. It had a few splotches of dirt and was missing some key new experiences the family had undergone, but she was thrilled to have it back where it belonged.

  Rosie heard another sound, a faint mew and looked at Auntie’s basket. “Is that … did you find …” She crawled over to the basket and peered inside. There was a tiny orange ball of fluff trying to climb out.

  “I wish I could bring you Kitty but she has never come back,” Auntie said, placing a hand on Rosie’s shoulder. “But another young cat showed up under our porch and gave birth to seven babies. Can you imagine? Seven babies at one time! And this one, this littlest one,” Auntie pulled the kitten out and rubbed it against her cheek, “told me she wanted to live with Rosie.”

  Rosie swallowed hard. It wasn’t Kitty but the little orange fluffball was so adorable. It mewed and seemed to scrabble toward Rosie.

  “See,” said Auntie, “she knows she belongs with you.”

  “I can’t call her Kitty,” Rosie said. “Maybe Coconut?” She cuddled the kitten and her heart melted as its rough tongue licked her hand. Auntie was right, Coconut belonged to her.

  “Thank you, Auntie, for everything,” said Rosie.

  “I feel bad,” she said, “for not helping more when your mama and papa were taken. I come over to your house and you were gone. I didn’t know where until you came to visit that day. I wish you had come to us.”

  “You have so many people at your house …”

  “There wi
ll always be room for you,” Auntie said. “I hope you do not need me again like that, but if you do, I will be very angry if you do not come to me.”

  “Thank you, Auntie.” Rosie continued to cuddle the kitten.

  A loud knock sounded on the door. Rosie and Coconut jumped up to answer it. Every time she heard someone at the door, it brought back a tinge of fear that the government men had returned. The fear grew less and less but it hadn’t gone away yet. She was relieved to see Kam’s face pressed against the screen.

  “Thought I’d come by and say hi. Hey, is that your cat?” he greeted her.

  “This is Coconut, not Kitty, but she’s pretty cute, isn’t she? And so cuddly!” Rosie let Kam inside and handed him the kitten.

  Kam held it away from him as if he didn’t know what to do with a cat.

  “Pet her!” Rosie said, laughing as Kam patted Coconut’s head with two fingers. She took the cat back.

  “I can’t believe a big, strong guy like you is afraid of a little kitten!” Leilani joined them, flipping her hair and smiling at Kam.

  “Allergies,” Kam said, “not afraid.”

  Hmm, Rosie thought. Looked like her old friend and her new friend might hit it off.

  “I hear you’re a surfer,” Leilani said. “Bet I’m better.”

  “We’ll have to see about that,” Kam said. “Anytime.”

  A car pulled up and Rosie saw through the door Aunt Etta and George walking toward the house. It was turning into a party. Aunt Etta waved and pulled George up the sidewalk. “Where’s your mother?” she called.

  “Right here!” Mama entered, carrying Enya, the youngest of her charges.

  “Is Henry around?”

  Mama looked over Aunt Etta’s shoulder, “Coming up the walk right now. Freddie, too.”

  The living room felt crowded once everyone was inside, all talking at once, trying to pet the kitten, and see the quilt. Auntie Palu hugged and kissed everyone as she greeted them and Freddie kept asking for some of the haupia she had brought.

  Aunt Etta clapped her hands. “We have an announcement.” She held up her left hand.

  Rosie saw a small diamond ring sparkling on her ring finger.

  “We’re getting married!” Aunt Etta said proudly. She leaned against George.

  “Congratulations!”

  “You must have the wedding at our house. And a luau!” Auntie said.

  “We can’t impose like that,” Aunt Etta said. “We’ll go to city hall.”

  “You must!” Auntie insisted.

  Rosie looked at the faces surrounding her, each one familiar and loving, not different at all. The war was there and looked like it would be looming for some time, but she had so much else to look forward to. Perhaps she would learn to dance. Perhaps Aunt Etta would ask her to be a bridesmaid when she married George. Perhaps she would become a champion at something! It was time to turn her different days into good days.

  Historical Note

  Different Days is inspired by a true story and real events, specifically the story of a girl named Doris Berg.

  Doris Berg (right) and her sister Anita in 1940.

  On December 7, 1941, eleven-year-old Doris Berg watched Japanese planes rain bombs on Pearl Harbor from her home in the Nuuanu Valley, Honolulu, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii. Even through the smoke, noise, and uproar of the attack, Doris felt safe because her family was there to care for her.

  The next day, everything changed. Doris’s father, Fred Berg, went to his job at Sears while her mother, Bertha Berg, stayed home to take care of patients still in residence at the nursing home they ran. The nursing home comprised the first two stories of the home where they lived on the third floor. Late in the morning of December 8, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents arrived at the home/business and took Mrs. Berg away to “ask her some questions,” leaving Doris in charge of her younger sister and the few remaining patients. Most patients had been removed by family because of the bombing. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Berg returned that evening. Doris had no idea where they were, why they had been taken, or what was happening to them. She thought the worst.

  The islands of Hawaii had been placed under martial law as a result of the bombing. Schools were closed and blackouts imposed. Grocery stores were ordered to close for inventory and subsequent rationing because shipments of food from the mainland were interrupted. News was censored and citizens had to abide by a curfew. The military was in charge.

  During the first week at the nursing home without her parents, Doris, still in charge, struggled mightily with what was happening. Strangers walked in and out of her house. Some were FBI agents searching for and seizing contraband (cameras, binoculars, radios, flashlights, anything that could be used to signal or communicate with the enemy). Others she believed to be relatives of patients taking them out of the home and others simply helped themselves to whatever they desired from the cabinets and furnishings of the Berg home.

  After a week on their own, Doris’s and Anita’s older sister, Eleanor, arrived and took some of the pressure off Doris—temporarily. The FBI showed up yet again and took Eleanor to ask her questions, leaving the young sisters abandoned again. Eleanor was allowed to call the day she was taken to assure Doris and Anita that she was all right but she was unable to offer any additional information in the short phone conversation.

  Doris’s aunt, her mother’s older sister, first hired a nurse to care for the girls. But by late December, with still no word from their parents, they had moved to their aunt’s home. They were cautioned to not mention the whereabouts of their parents (which they didn’t know anyway) and their aunt introduced them as refugees.

  At her aunt’s, Doris also met Mr. Reed, a local realtor appointed to manage her parents’ properties, for the first time in late December. He brought several gifts for the girls that he had recovered from their home at the request of their parents. He drove Doris and Anita to the house to pack clothes and other belongings but the house had been stripped bare. Doris’s cat, Kitty Poo, met her at the door, but her aunt refused to allow her to bring the cat with her. That was the last time she saw Kitty Poo, another loss.

  On Christmas Day, the celebration was low key—a makeshift tree, no carols, none of the German traditions the girls loved. Every trace of German heritage had to be erased and ignored so long as their aunt felt the family was under surveillance for possible anti-American activities. Their aunt let them have the gifts of clothing their parents had sent, but insisted the remaining gifts be donated to the Salvation Army.

  In January 1942, Doris and Anita finally received a letter—snuck out by a released prisoner—from their mother telling them that she was well and being held at Fort Armstrong, interned as an enemy alien.

  Doris couldn’t understand. Her parents and her sister were neither enemies nor aliens (noncitizens living in the United States). Her mother and Eleanor had been born in Hawaii, making them lifelong American citizens. Her father had proudly become a naturalized citizen in 1940. It had to be a mistake! Once the officials realized her parents and Eleanor were American citizens, they would surely be released.

  Unknown to Doris, her family members had already been given hearings in front of a three-man board but were not informed of the charges made against them or who had made those charges. This made it impossible for them to respond. This was the accepted practice for dealing with internees. The hearing was a courtesy only. The Bergs had also been coerced into signing statements they did not agree with. The fact of their citizenship was ignored.

  In February 1942, Mrs. Berg and Eleanor were transferred to what the Bergs referred to as a concentration camp on Sand Island in Honolulu Harbor. Mr. Berg was shipped with other male internees to Fort McCoy, Wisconsin.

  In April, Eleanor was paroled and took over care of Doris and Anita after their aunt suffered a heart attack, saving them from having to go into an orphanage. Their father returned from the mainland and was reunited with their mother. The girls were finally allowed to visit t
hem at Sand Island.

  Living with Eleanor was a release from life with their prim and proper aunt, but conditions were tough. Mr. Reed claimed there was no money available for the girls’ support and by caring for her sisters, Eleanor was violating her parole. The girls learned to lie because it was the most important thing in the world to stay together.

  Eventually, Mr. and Mrs. Berg were sent to Camp Honouliuli in the Waianae Mountains. The camp was located in a gulch with little relief from the heat. The girls were, however, now permitted to visit for the weekend twice a month until their mother’s parole in June 1943 and their father’s in August 1943.

  Fred, Bertha, and Eleanor were three of the 10,905 Germans interned at various locations throughout the United States during World War II.

  The genesis of the internment process began in the late 1930s when President Franklin Roosevelt and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover created a secret intelligence network to identify people in the United States who might be a threat in the war they knew was on the horizon. This stemmed in part from lingering fear of the German community in World War I.

  In response to this, a Custodial Detention Index was created, rating a person’s degree of threat to safety from A (most dangerous) to C (least dangerous). Aliens were required to register, starting in 1940, and answer a series of questions that were kept on file.

  Citizens were encouraged to report any suspicions of spying, sabotage, or unusual enemy-related activities to the FBI. These reports were often based on innuendo, hearsay, and gossip. The reports were confidential, often anonymous, and the evidence was seldom corroborated or investigated beyond the word of the informant.

  Some of the people interned indeed were leaders in the Nazi party in the US (the Bund) and harbored strong patriotic ties to Germany, but others were interned solely because of perceived German sympathies. These might include things like membership in German organizations, listening to German music, subscribing to a German newspaper, or receiving mail from Germany. Gatherings, even social gatherings of ethnic Germans, and speaking German were also considered evidence of loyalty to Germany.