The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange (50 page)

When I first heard the accounts of what the Japanese American children in the camp refer to as the “prom disaster,” I didn’t understand why such a small event had such extraordinary consequences. After interviews with dozens of former internees, now elderly men and women, I began to recognize that the prom was yet another line in the sand: if the students said yes to the prom, it meant yes to America, and no to their issei parents. Again, the issue was loyalty.

This chapter relies on interviews with both German American and Japanese American internees. All of those interviewed vividly remembered the day that the two Japanese Peruvians drowned in the camp swimming pool. The account in this chapter is a compilation of the memories of many internees.

On the day in August 2012 when I stood in the reading room of the National Archives in Washington, DC, and pulled out the May 1944 love letters described in this chapter, I grasped the utter isolation of internment. The secret notes from the unhappily married Japanese American woman to her lover in Denver were written in tiny script and hidden beneath the letters’ postage stamps and discovered by camp censors. I elected not to use the names of the lovers. One line in particular became the central metaphor for the tragedies of that summer: “The birds are crying, too.”

In any other
: HNCC, 27.

The battle
: Letter from Fujii to O’Rourke, NA1, RG85, Box 3; and the prom incident also covered in Riley, 150–52.

O’Rourke’s answer
: Letter from O’Rourke to Willard Kelly, INS, NA1, RG85, Box 4.

At school
: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa Shimatsu.

Sumi’s friend
: Author interview, Yae Kanogawa Aihara; and Aihara’s interview with the Densho Visual History Collection.

Nevertheless, on May 26, 1944
: Ibid.

Yae’s teacher
: This incident was also described by Yae’s brother Stogie Kanogawa in his videotaped interview with Leslie Burns, UTSA.

The following day
: Letters from censor found at NA1, RG85, Box 3.

She was not alone
: Ibid.

Maruko Okazaki
: Ibid.

In May 1944
: NA1, RG85, Box 17.

While O’Rourke
: Author interview, J. Barton Harrison.

When in 1943
:
Washington Post
, July 20, 1944.

“The only other”
: Ibid.

On July 20, 1944
:
New York Times.

“Hats off ”
:
Washington Post
, July 24, 1944.

A Japanese internee
: Toriu’s note generously provided by Barton Harrison.

In August 1944 the hospital
: NA1, RG85, Box 3; HNCC, 20–24; and also described in
Alien Enemy Detention Facility
(16mm camp film of Crystal City, Texas).

All that changed
: The account of the deaths of the two girls was drawn from author interviews with Ty Nakamura, Alice Nishimoto, Sumi Utsushigawa, and Toni Tomita. The account from Bessie Masuda was found in an oral history, Texas Historical Commission. Medical records of their death, NA1, RG85, Box 50.

Interviews with Ingrid, Ensi, and Lothar Eiserloh, as well as other children from Crystal City who made the voyage from the port of New Jersey to the port of Marseille, formed the foundation of this chapter. The interviews with Bernard Levermann and Elizabeth Lechner, known as Suzy, confirmed the experience of the Eiserloh children. In addition, the Graber family story, located on the German American Internee Coalition website, provided additional insight into the particulars of the exchange.

Additional details came from chapter 20, “To Germany,” of Stephen Fox’s book
America’s Invisible Gulag: A Biography of German American Internment & Exclusion in World War II
(New York: Peter Lang, 2000), and from records in the special FBI file of Mathias Eiserloh.

As good-bye ceremonies
: Author interview, Ingrid Eiserloh.

Near the end
: Krammer,
Undue Process
, 146.

The January 1945
: Fox, 236–46.

Even on the morning
: Letter from Mangels to his superior, January 9, 1945, ME.

Customs agents
: Author interviews, Ingrid and Ensi Eiserloh.

On December 29
: Fox, 237.

Finally, the day of reckoning
: SF-E, memo from Martin to O’Rourke.

All day
: Mangels letter, ME.

“It was”
: Author interview, Lothar Eiserloh.

Security was
: Krammer,
Undue Process
, 147.

By morning
: Martin’s memo to O’Rourke, SF-E.

“Don’t take”
: Author interview, Ingrid Eiserloh, confirmed by Ensi Eiserloh.

In his written report
: SF-E.

The trains
: Krammer,
Undue Process
, 147.

Johanna and Guenther
: Author interview, Ensi Eiserloh.

Meanwhile, Lothar
: Author interview, Lothar Eiserloh; and description of the ship taken from
M.S. Gripsholm: The FBI Files
, 100-124687, Section 7.

As the ship
: Author interviews, Ingrid and Ensi Eiserloh.

“If the ship”
: Author interview, Lothar Eiserloh.

Once inside
: Fox, 238.

One of Lothar’s
: Ibid., 243–44. Like the Eiserloh children, in Ruth Becker’s account to Fox and to this author she described the voyage over, the net of mines, and the lack of food in Marseille.

“You’re making”
: Author interviews, Ingrid and Lothar Eiserloh.

The passengers
: Author interviews, Bernard Levermann and Elizabeth Lechner; and the Graber family story, found on the German American Internee Coalition website,
http://www.gaic.info
.

Bert Shepard
: Fox, 253–54.

Mathias needed
: Author interview, Ingrid Eiserloh.

Irene Hasenberg’s incredible story had its beginning for me in a list of names I found in the archives of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. An archivist had led me to this list when I asked how I might locate names of Jews who could have been exchanged. The museum had obtained the list directly from Nazi archives: the Centraal Registratiebureau voor Joden recorded the names of Jewish prisoners at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp who were released in January 1945. A detailed accounting, it records full names, birth dates, birthplaces, and nationalities. Of the 190 persons listed, I was able at first to locate only one survivor: Irene Hasenberg. I later found a second survivor, Jacob Wolf.

On June 12, 2013, I traveled to the home of Irene Hasenberg (Butter) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was the birthday of Anne Frank, who was a friend of Irene’s in Amsterdam. Our intensive interview in Ann Arbor has been augmented by subsequent telephone conversations. Her generous narrative is the basis for this chapter. Also consulted was Irene’s lengthy interview of September 22, 1986, for the Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive, deposited at the University of Michigan, Dearborn.

Important for an understanding of US government policies regarding Jews during World War II was one book in particular: Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman’s
FDR and the Jews
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2013). Breitman and Lichtman offer a nuanced examination of Roosevelt’s response to the Jewish question. They conclude that he was a consummate politician who also acted at times to rescue Jews. This finding sheds light on how the exchange of Jews at Bergen-Belsen for German American internees such as Ingrid Eiserloh could even have taken place, considering how contrary it seems to the stated goals of exchanging US German residents for Americans behind enemy lines in Germany.

On the morning
: Author interview with Irene Hasenberg, June 12, 2013. Other aspects of her family’s story recounted throughout this chapter come from this interview.

856 quota
: Stephen Fox,
Inside the Roundup of German Americans During World War II: The Past as Prologue
(Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2005).

The narrative of the Eiserlohs’ repatriation from Crystal City to Germany is a compilation of the memories of the three surviving Eiserloh children: Ingrid, Lothar, and Ensi. They generously shared their experiences and thus enabled a clear picture of what that trauma entailed.

the moment
: Author interviews, Ingrid and Lothar Eiserloh.

Only two weeks
: Cawthorne, 176–77.

On February 4
: Brands, 793–802.

Over seven days
: Rowley, 273.

When Franklin
: Ibid., 286.

Meanwhile
: The rest of this chapter is based on extensive interviews with Ingrid, Lothar, and Ensi Eiserloh.

A crucial addition in this chapter is the testimony of Jacob Wolf, whose name also appears on the list of exchanges from Bergen-Belsen. Irene Hasenberg Butter graciously put me in touch with Wolf, who lived in Brooklyn, New York. Wolf provided the majority of the material regarding his family and his experience of the exchange, although Irene also remembered key information.

A secondary source that provided useful historical context is Richard Breitman and Allan J. Lichtman’s
FDR and the Jews
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2013).

Irene’s journey
: Author interview with Irene Hasenberg Butter, June 12, 2013. Irene’s memories of the events, people, places, and her feelings about the time in Philippeville are my source for her experience there.

One of the gravely ill
: Author interview with Jacob Wolf, October 13, 2013, and Centraal Registratiebureau voor Joden (list of exchangees from Bergen-Belsen).

Two large trains
: Interviews with Irene Hasenberg Butter, Ingrid Eiserloh, and Jacob Wolf. Also in Fox,
America’s Invisible Gulag
, 254.

On the other side
: Author interview, Jacob Wolf.

Prior to 1939
: Ira Katznelson, “Failure to Rescue: How FDR Hurt Jewish Would-Be Immigrants,”
New Republic
, July 6, 2013.

Even a bill
: Breitman and Lichtman, 148–51.

In the end
: Ibid., 179.

By 1941
: Ibid., chapter 13, “The War Refugee Board,” 262–75.

On June 29, 1944
: Ibid., 287.

In November 1945
: Author interview, Jacob Wolf.

The story of how the prisoners inside the Crystal City camp lived under a veil of censorship and surveillance could not have been told without the generosity of former internees such as Eb Fuhr and Sumi Utsushigawa, who shared their memories with me. Their experiences shed light on how isolated and constrained the lives of internees were, and how difficult it was for them to stay connected with news and family from the world outside the fence, during
the war and even after it was over. Materials in the National Archives were also invaluable in fleshing out this chapter, especially for creating the context of the camp and the actions of authorities.

By the spring
: HNCC, 23–24.

Students
: Mangione, 333.

On April 13, 1945
: Author interview, Eb Fuhr.

In the Japanese section
: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.

In contrast
: NA1, RG85, Box 38.

Of course
: Ibid.

The morning, Brands, 815–18;
and Rowley, 281–85.

In Crystal City
: NA1, RG85, Box 46.

At the Federal High
: CC50, 50; NA1, RG85, Box 49.

In 1938, the phrase
: Wikipedia, and author interview, Toni Tanita previously fixed.

The nights
: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.

Night Owl
: CC50, 50.

Every tennis
: Ibid., 57.

When they tired
: Author interview, Eb Fuhr; Fox, 257–61; and Jacobs and Fallon.

Mangione
: Mangione to O’Rourke October 27, 1943, and Collaer to O’Rourke, January 19, 1945, NA1, RG85, Box 1; and the film
Alien Enemy Detention Facility.

1944 propaganda film
: Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

In April 1945
: Fusao,
Only What We Could Carry
, 377–87; and Junichi Suzuki,
442: Live with Honor, Die with Dignity.

Ella Ohta
: Author interview, Ella Ohta Tomita.

In May 1945
: Author interviews, Eb Fuhr and Sumi Utsushigawa.

On the evening
: CC50, 50–53.

Meanwhile, the war
: Cawthorne, 214–17.

In Crystal City
: Author interviews, Yae Kanogawa Aihara and Carmen Higa Mochizuki.

From his bungalow
: Isamu Taniguchi, “Essay on Atomic War and Peace,” unpublished.

“After V-E Day”
: Author interview, Eb Fuhr.

The mood
: Author interview, Sumi Utsushigawa.

This chapter offers a glimpse into the complex repercussions of the government’s repatriation policy. Interviews with the Japanese Americans who were forced, oftentimes by their fathers’ decisions, to go to Japan reveal the tragic effects on the lives of individuals and entire families. Tensions developed between fathers and their children. Parents who believed Japan had won the war suffered shock and regret upon arriving in Japan. Since their children were unfamiliar with Japan, having been born elsewhere, their adjustment to a new country was intensified by the poverty, social devastation, and psychological trauma of a defeated nation. The American-born children considered themselves American. Some, like Carmen Higa Mochizuki, a Peruvian, had to learn a completely new language. Even worse, the “repatriates” were resented by their new countrymen and suspected of being spies.