The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange (51 page)

The testimonies of these child internees about their feelings and about their family’s experiences weave the central thread throughout this chapter: divided loyalties, divided families, divided lives.

During the fall
: SF-U.

It was midterm
: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.

On the morning
: CC50, excerpts from Walls, 21.

Six hundred
: Ibid.

Though Sumi
: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.

Teenagers from Crystal City
: Author interview, Mas Okabe.

Carmen Higa Mochizuki
: Author interview, Carmen Higa Mochizuki.

On December 22
: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.

One of the teachers
: CC50, 76, article by Sumi Utsushigawa, which includes the dialogue between the schoolteacher from Crystal City and the Japanese boatman.

The barges
: Ibid.

Back in the United States
: CC50, 75, Associated Press photos of the arrival of Crystal City repatriates to Uraga, Japan, printed in CC50 with permission of Roy Kubo.

The barracks
: Author interview, Mas Okabe.

The next morning
: Author interviews with Okabe, Sumi Utsushigawa, and Min Tajaii.

The windows
: The description of Yokohama was taken from a website that describes details of the attack with photographs from the National Archives,
http://www.468thbombgroup.org
.

the snow
: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.

More than three hundred
: Author interview, Mas Okabe.

She was born in Peru
: Author interview, Carmen Higa Mochizuki.

Their destination
: Cawthorne, 212–13.

The families
: Author interview, Alice Nagao Nishimoto.

As the months
: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.

My account of Harrison’s special mission to Europe drew from the Earl G. Harrison paper collection, donated by Harrison’s family in August 1994 to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. Vincent Slatt, an archivist at the museum, directed me to the digitized version of Harrison’s extraordinary diary of his survey of displaced-persons camps in July and August of 1945. The file also contains a recording of Harrison’s radio address in October 1945 in response to Eisenhower’s criticism.

An understanding of the personal implications of Harrison’s trip emerged from secondary sources, including the previously cited article by Lewis Stevens, printed in the
University of Pennsylvania Law Review
in 1956, and a transcript of Harry Reicher’s speech at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library in 2012. Barton Harrison, Earl Harrison’s son, directed me to those sources.

Harrison was the
: “The United States and the Holocaust: Postwar American Response to the Holocaust,”
Holocaust Encyclopedia
, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.

The trip
: “War Refugee Board: Background and Establishment,”
Holocaust Encyclopedia
, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.

Roosevelt’s death
: “Buchenwald: History,” Jewish Virtual Library.

Three days later
: Transcript of Murrow’s broadcast found at
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/murrow.html
. It can also be viewed on YouTube.

On April 15
: Cawthorne, 200; and Murrow transcript.

Truman rejected
: Truman to Eisenhower, August 31, 1945, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC.

Throughout his trips
: Harrison’s diary, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, RG-10.088, accession no. 1994.A.0079.

Harrison toured the facility
: According to Harrison’s diary notes, he
arrived in Bergen-Belsen on July 23, 1945, and met Rosensaft and his wife, Hadassah.

He asked
: Harrison’s diary, July 24, 1945.

At the end
: Harry Reicher, “The Post-Holocaust World and President Harry S. Truman: The Harrison Report and Immigration Law and Policy” (transcript of a speech at the Truman Presidential Museum and Library, Kansas City, MO, July 10, 2002), 12.

Harrison did not
: Harrison’s diary, July 24, 1945.

After Bergen-Belsen
: Ibid.

On August 3, 1945, United
States Holocaust Memorial Museum, archives, Washington, DC.

In a confidential message
: Eisenhower to Truman, Jewish Virtual Library.

Patton’s response
: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, archives, Washington, DC.

On October 17, 1945
:
New York Times
, October 17, 1945.

The following day
:
New York Times
, October 18, 1945.

The public embarrassment
: Angelika Konigseder and Juliane Wetzel,
Waiting for Hope: Jewish Displaced Persons in Post War Germany
(Evans-ton, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001), 35.

The postwar struggles of displaced persons described in this chapter were provided in interviews with survivors of the Crystal City repatriation, as well as with Irene Hasenberg. The circuitous journeys of Ingrid and Lothar Eiserloh, Irene Hasenberg, and Sumi Utsushigawa to America testify to their incredible determination to rebuild their lives. As Americans displaced by the repatriation policy of the US government, Ingrid, Lothar, and Sumi were determined to get back to their homeland. For Irene, America would be where she would reunite with her mother and brother, secure an education, and build a remarkable life.

In May 1945
: Author interview, Lothar Eiserloh.

Eisenhower made
: Victor Gollancz,
In Darkest Germany
(London: Gollancz, 1947), 116.

On May 8
: Author interviews, Ingrid and Ensi Eiserloh.

When the US Army
: Author interview, Lothar Eiserloh.

Eisenhower instituted
: Gollancz, 125–26.

In late May
: SF-E.

The Army
: Author interviews, Ingrid, Lothar, and Ensi Eiserloh.

In contrast, Ingrid’s
: Author interview, Ingrid Eiserloh; details confirmed by Ensi Eiserloh.

and they filled out
: SF-E.

In October 1945
: Author interview, Irene Hasenberg.

In January 1946
: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.

For instance
: Author interview, Mas Okabe.

In Hiroshima
: Author interview, Min Tajii.

In July 1947
: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.

Several sources were important in composing this account of the difficulties faced by the administration as well as the remaining internees at Crystal City in the last stage of the camp’s existence. As always, interviews with internees and family members were invaluable. Much material from the Reverend Yoshiaki Fukuda’s memoir,
My Six Years of Internment
, made its way into this chapter. Also useful was the INS personnel file of O’Rourke and records about the camp in the National Archives. Arnold Krammer’s book
Undue Process: The Untold Story of America’s German Alien Internees
(London: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997) provided contextual information.

By August 1945
: NA2, RG59, Box 70.

By 1945
: O’Rourke’s INS personnel file, Department of Justice; and interviews with former internees.

He also described
: HNCC, 30.

Finally, he offered
: Ibid., 31.

On September 8
: NA1, RG85, Box 21; and Krammer, 151.

O’Rourke’s mandate
: NA1, RG85, Box 46.

One example
: NA1, RG85, Box 25.

The Department of Justice
: Ibid.

While internees like Eppeler
: Author interview, Eb Fuhr; and Riley, 121–22.

Nonetheless, Barbara encouraged
: Riley, 121.

Among the most tragic
: Fukuda,
My Six Years
, forward by Isao Goto, head minister, Konko Church of Gardena, California, and 63.

Fukuda now
: The case notes of Dr. Martin found in SF-F.

On March 11
: SF-F, and Fukuda,
My Six Years
, 62–63.

The following month
: Ibid., 59–62.

Two days later
: SF-F.

On August 8, 1946
: Ibid.

The petition
: Author interview, Nobusuke Fukuda.

By then
: NA1, RG27; and author interview, Eb Fuhr.

For the other
: SF-F.

In early January
: O’Rourke’s INS personnel file.

L. T. McCollister
: Fukuda,
My Six Years
, 62–68.

In Crystal City
: Author interview, Eb Fuhr; and
New York Times
, January 3, 1947.

In April
: Author interview, Eb Fuhr; and Krammer, 159.

Fukuda told
: SF-F.

On February 27, 1948
: NA2, RG59, Box 70.

To extend the narrative past the closing of the camp in 1948, I revisited major characters and described what, if any, meaning they made of their experiences during the war. I relied on interviews with Sumi, the Fukuda children, Carmen Mochizuki, Ingrid, Ensi, Lothar, Eb Fuhr, Irene, and others.

Secondary sources, previously cited, provided information for US government figures. As examples of losers and winners, I used newspaper clippings, primarily from the
New York Times
, to describe Kuhn’s unhappy ending and Shepard’s triumphant postwar life.

In my research, I was struck by how many of the US officials responsible for the camp died of heart attacks, a common cause of death, but perhaps exacerbated by the strain—and perhaps guilt—of their participation in this bleak period in American history.

The small, white
: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.

In 1985
: Taniguchi papers provided by Evan Taniguchi; and author visit to site of monument.

In November
: Author interviews, Sumi Utsushigawa and Jose Angel Gutierrez.

City Manager
: Author interview, Tomoko Tomita.

A parade
: John MacCormack,
San Antonio Express-News
, November 9, 1997; and
Crystal City Chatter
, issue 38, December 1997.

Many more reunions
: Author interviews, Tomoko Tomita, Mas Okabe, and Sumi Utsushigawa.

Upon Fukuda’s
: Fukuda,
My Six Years
, 74.

His wife, Shinko
: Author interviews, Nobusuke, Saburo, Hiroshi, and Koichi Fukuda.

In June 1996
: Author interviews, Carmen Mochizuki and Alice Nishimoto; and Campaign for Justice, Nikkei for Civil Rights and Redress, February 2008,
http://www.ncrr-la.org
.

After the war
: Hisao Inouye,
Crystal City Chatter
, January 1988.

O’Rourke died
: Death notice found on
Ancestry.com
; and obituary,
Dallas Morning News
, April 6, 1959.

During the postwar
: Author interview, Barton Harrison.

As attorney general
: Biddle, 212; and Weglyn, 291. Also
San Antonio Express-News
column by Maury Maverick Jr., December 29, 1985.

Tom Clark
: Weglyn, 114.

On May 8, 1945
: Kearns Goodwin, 620.

Upon his deportation
: Jacobs and Fallon.

In contrast
: Richard Goldstein, “Bert Shepard, 87, an Inspirational Amputee, Dies,”
New York Times
, June 20, 2008.

After Eb Fuhr
: Author interview, Eb Fuhr; and Jacobs and Fallon,
Documents.

The world
: Author interviews, Ingrid, Lothar, and Ensi Eiserloh.

Two months later
: Author interview, Irene Hasenberg.

Alvarez, Elizabeth Cruce, ed.
Texas Almanac, 2010–2011.
Denton: Texas State Historical Association, 2010.

Asahina, Robert.
Just Americans: How Japanese Americans Won a War at Home and Abroad.
New York: Gotham Books, 2006.

Biddle, Francis.
In Brief Authority.
New York: Doubleday, 1962.

Brands, H. W.
Traitor to His Class.
New York: Anchor Books, 2009.

Breitman, Richard, and Allan J. Lichtman.
FDR and the Jews.
Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2013.

Cawthorne, Nigel.
World at War: The Compelling Guide to World War II.
Sywell, England: Igloo Books, 2012.

Christgau, John.
Enemies: World War II Alien Internment.
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985; 2009.

Cook, Blanche Wiesen.
Eleanor Roosevelt: Volume One, 1884–1933.
New York: Viking, 1992.

Corbett, P. Scott.
Quiet Passages: The Exchange of Civilians Between the United States and Japan During the Second World War.
Kent, OH: Kent University Press, 1987.

Crystal City 50th Anniversary Reunion Album.
Monterey, CA: October 8–10, 1993.

Davis, Kenneth.
FDR: The War President, 1940–1943.
New York: Random House, 2000.

Donald, Heidi Gurcke.
We Were Not the Enemy: Remembering the United States’ Latin-American Civilian Internment Program of World War II.
New York: Universe, 2006.

Elleman, Bruce.
Japanese-American Civilian Prisoner Exchanges and Detention Camps, 1941–1945.
New York: Routledge, 2006.

Fox, Stephen.
America’s Invisible Gulag: A Biography of German American Internment & Exclusion in World War II.
New York: Peter Lang, 2000.