Transcripts For CSPAN2 QA 20151230

During the war. Operated from 19421948 the camp was the center of a program called quite passage in which hundreds of detainees were exchanged against their will for american diplomats and soldiers and others held behind enemy line. Cspan Jan Jarboe Russell, author of the train to crystal city, who is sumi . Cspan sumi is the japaneseamerican main character of my book, who was born in los angeles, and her father was a photographer, the most successful japanese photographer in los angeles. And he was arrested as an enemy alien because he was a photographer. During world war ii, as you know, photography was like the internet. Anybody that had access to it could take photos of military bases and things like that. So the 32,000 enemy alien fathers who were arrested were largely arrested not based on anything they had done as human beings, but on their occupations, which could have been harmful, according to the government, to our war effort. And sumi is this was this remarkable, plucky tomboy who was going to high school at Central Junior High School in los angeles when pearl harbor was bombed, and her life changed in an instant. Cspan is she still alive . Guest she is still alive. Shes in her 80s, and she lives in oakland, california. And she has she kind of is the mother of all the japaneseamericans that were in crystal city who are still alive. She operates a newsletter called the crystal city chatter, and that keeps people up to date on deaths, on childrens issues. And she was critical to me, because one, she agreed to talk to me. All of her friends talked to me as well. And so i began going around the country trying to interview as many former children who were in the camp as possible. Cspan where is crystal city, texas . Guest crystal city, texas is located 120 miles southwest of san antonio, which is my home, about 35 miles from the u. S. Mexican border. The lights of the internment camp could be seen from mexico at night because the land there is incredibly desolate. It was in fact chosen as the enemy alien internment camp that housed multiple nationalitiesgermans, germanamericans, italians, italianamericans, japanese, and japaneseamericansthe only camp that housed multiple nationalities of families during the war. And it was chosen in large part because it was in such an isolated location. And if you wanted to have a camp like crystal city internment camp, it was a very good place to locate it. Cspan how did you find sumi . Guest well the first thing is that it was a long journey to sumi. I first learned about this camp many years ago, 42 years ago, when i was a student at the university of texas. And i met a remarkable man, alan taniguchi, who was the dean of architecture. Now this might sound funny, but i was very, very young and from a very small town in east texas, and i had never seen an asian person before. I was 19 years old. And so i met this guy at a Faculty Senate meeting; i was a young reporter for the daily texan. And after the meeting, i went up to him and i said, you know, ive never met an asian person before. Where are you from . And Alan Tanaguchi said, brentwood, california. And i said, well you know, we ask this question a lot in texas, i said, well professor, how did you get to texas . And he said, my family was in camp there. Now my father was a baptist minister. And so when he said he was in camp here, i came up with the answer, church camp . And he said, not exactly. And he told me that his family had been interned in crystal city. Over the years, i stayed in touch with alan, and always the subject of this mysterious camp came up. But in 2010, i stopped by his office in austin just to talk to him, and i had read the book unbroken, and i wondered what alan had to say about the comparison between americans held in pow camps in japan and the treatment of japaneseamericans and germanamericans in crystal city. I learned that alan had died, and i was devastated because i thought, i have missed this chance to tell the story of crystal city. But his son handed me a file that had alans all of alans notes on crystal city. And the number one name on that list was sumi. So i called her that night, and i explained my situation, and i asked if she would help me. And she said yes, and i flew out to los angeles that week, and the Real Research of the book began. Cspan how many hours did you talk to her . Guest over the course of these five years, hundreds of hours. And the other main character was ingrid eiserloh, the germanamerican. And the same. You know, one of the great things about doing books as opposed to magazine pieces and newspaper stories is that is the long lead time and the research. And first i interviewed these people, and then they had no idea why they were in the camp, or what was going to happen to them. So that brought me to the National Archives. And the records of the camp are located in the National Archives, some in National Archives one and some in college park National Archives two. So the book became this process of a vertical structure that had to do with the timeline of the campwhen it opened, when it closedand then interviews that were horizontal, the heart of the book, which was all these amazing survivors of the camp who were children in the camp. Cspan you mentioned ingrid eiserloh. Who is she . And is she still alive . Guest ingrid unfortunately died on pearl harbor day in 2014. Im extremely sad that she cant be part of this celebration. Sumi and all her friends are. But she has a brother, lothar, and a sister, ensi, who are still alive. But ingrid lived in honolulu, and so i spent the same amount of time with ingrid that i did with sumi. And these two girls essentially form the basic structure or the main characters of the book. But there were so many fascinating characters that i couldnt leave them out. And so there are a lot of other characters in the book as you go along. Cspan what were the circumstances between that were different between ingrid and sumi . Guest well you know, according to the geneva convention, we were not supposed to have an internment camp that had multiple nationalities. And so even though but it happened in crystal city anyway. The germans arrived first into camp in 1942, and once those families had been reunited in crystal city, they couldnt exactly throw them out, and so the japanese and the germans had and a small number of italians had to live together. So in the camp, they didnt have very much to do with each other. These, they it selfsegregated. But in terms of the arrest of their fathers, their time in the camp, and what happened to them when they left the camp, the situation between sumi and ingrid was very much the same. Neither knew why their father was arrested until i was able to get their fbi files declassified, and then they began to understand what the governments case was against them, which was very flimsy indeed. Both of it had to do sumis father, as i said, was a photographer, and ingrids father was a very, very wellknown engineer in cleveland, ohio, and he had built a lot of dams and bridges and roads. And so the fbi concluded, based on some flimsy testimony from his colleagues, some of whom wanted his job, that if her father, mathias, could build a bridge or a road, they might be able to blow it up. And so based on that, he was a socalled enemy alien. Cspan just to get a flavor, and ill be interested in your reaction to this film itself. Its a government film. Guest right. Cspan and do you happen to know when that government film was originally produced . Guest i do. It was done in 1945 as the war was coming you know, we were, you know, getting ready to end it. And so the camp had been secret. And then suddenly, the government decided to do this film, and it shows the camp in the best possible light, as you could see. Cspan lets just watch a minute of it, and then ill get your reaction to it. Guest sure. This clip is going to show you how women, men, and children lived and worked under the standards of decency and humane treatment. Female here is a party of women and children arriving in crystal city following their voluntary decision to join husbands and fathers and detention. Practically all the children and many women were american born. Incoming parties were greeted by a detainee welcoming committee and band music. Cspan first of all, when the fellow that opened it up there said that decent and humanitarian treatment by the americans, was it . Guest i have to answer that question yes. It was. I think our National Honor was truly saved by earl harrison, the head of the ins, and joseph orourke, who was the commander. The other thing it said is that these people were there voluntarily. But what it didnt what the thing does not say is that essentially, these people had no other choice, because in ingrids case, in sumis case, in all the kids cases, their fathers had been taken, had been arrested and held without charges and under terms of indefinite detention in allmale camps. So immediately, ingrid and her family lost her home in strongsville, ohio and had nowhere to go. And sumi and the japaneseamericans were in relocation camps around the country. So the government comes to the fathers and said, we have a deal for you. We will reunite you with your families in the crystal city internment camp, the family internment camp, if you will agree to go voluntarily. And then i discovered what the real secret of the camp was. If you they also had to agree to voluntarily repatriate to germany and to japan if the government decided they needed to be repatriated. So the truth of the matter is that the crystal city camp was humanely administered by the ins. But the special war divisions of the department of states used it as roosevelts primary Prisoner Exchange. It was the center of roosevelts Prisoner Exchange program. And literally thousands of americanborn children, german and japanese mothers and fathers, were traded into war as ingrid was and sumi, in exchange for ostensibly more important americans. Cspan how long did sumi and ingrid live in this camp, and when were they sent back to japan or, well, not back, because they were american citizensjapan and germany . Guest sumi was in heart mountain when her fathers heart mountain camp, and her father a cspan where is that . Guest heart mountain was a relocation camp in wyoming. Her father was in an allmale camp in santa fe. And they and he agreed right then in 1943 that he would go back to japan. So before she came to crystal city, she was supposed to be traded in the 1943 exchange. In the negotiations between tokyo and washington, the numbers for that exchange were cut, and so they came to crystal city, and she was traded into japan in 1945. Ingrid was and her family were traded into germany before the war ended in january 1945 into some very, very difficult situations, both of the girls were. But this is the real tragedy of the camp, from my point of view, is that we traded americanborn children into war as a consequence of the fact that they had prisoner of war fathers. And these people that were exchanged in the war really suffered terrible situations. They also in fact, despite what it said on the internment on the tape, they also lost all their freedom. They werent free to go anywhere. They lived behind barbed wire, daily life in crystal city, when they were interned there. Sumi lived there two years. Ingrid was there two years. And they couldnt they had roll call every day. It was hot as it could be in these you know, there were these you know, there were snakes and scorpions and they all have memories of that. Their parents were displaced from their lives and suffering from all kinds of maladies. So it was no picnic in crystal city. Cspan lets watch a little bit of an overview of the crystal city, the camp. Guest sure. Female the sun shines practically every day in the year with a cool breeze from the gulf in the evening. Originally, it was a migratory labor camp of approximately 100 housing units, utility and recreation buildings. To provide for the population of 3,600, we added more than 500 housing units, school buildings, a hospital, administrative and maintenance buildings. We tripled the number of streets and extended the electric and sewage facilities. This is the perimeter, over which armed guards kept a 24 hour watch. At night, the illumination from the lights along the top of this fence was visible almost to Mexican Border. Cspan you said they voluntarily went in but could not get out voluntarily. Guest absolutely. And as you could see that those guard towers, they were always under armed guard. Everyone knew the penalty for an attempt to escape was death, and in the entire history of the camp, no one ever attempted to escape, because for one place, where would go . You were in the middle of nowhere. And so despite the fact that they said there was a cool breeze from mexico, nobody that i ever talked to felt that cool breeze. And so it was an internment camp and but the japanese kids had a kind of great sense of humor. Sumi said that the boys in the camp, the japanese boys, would go at night to serenade the guards, and they would sing, oh give me land, lots of land under starry skies above, dont fence me in, and the camp and the guards would laugh and the boys would laugh. So theyre remarkable resilient, plucky kids. I mean, i guess kids are kids, you know. And they had lots of tension amongst loyalty issues, because by this time, most of the japanese fathers were pretty sour on the United States, and most of their american born children were very bullish on america. Cspan what did the People Living in the camp know . Did they have a newspaper they could see or radio they could listen to . Cspan where did they get the money to spend . Guest well they didnt they had camp tokens. They did not get money. So a man that was given 10 cents in a token for one hours work, and of course the internees all worked, they made their own they grew their own vegetables, they had they made their own mattresses and Everything Else right there in crystal city. And so for that, they were paid 10 cents in this funny little it looks kind of like a casino chip. They were red and green and yellow chips. And they bought their stuff in the camp store with those tokens. Cspan give us an overview, please, of the entire idea of putting japanese, italians, germans, in these internment camps nationwide. How many camps were there . Guest this was the only camp, brian, of its kind that had multiple nationalities and that had families. And so and it was specifically for these two purposes one, humane, to reunite enemy alien fathers with their children, and the other purpose, exchange. Roosevelt needed to create a pool of people. Early on in the war, he realized Prisoner Exchange has been going on in every war weve ever had since the american revolution. We just think, we dont seem to know that as americans. But he knew that some of our people would be taken in war and that he would need people to trade. And so, in addition to the people i just mentioned, he also brought in about 4,000 japanese and germans from 13 different latin american countries, like bolivia, peru, colombia. And he brought some of these people in, and many of those people wound up in crystal city speaking spanish. So you had people speaking spanish, german, japanese, italian, and english in this one little camp. And some of those people were traded the japaneseperuvians, and german and ecuadorian germanecuadorians were traded into their into war too. So essentially, that was the reason reuniting people and exchange. Cspan what about we showed up a chart on the screen or a map of a lot of other camps around the country. Do you know how many camps there were total, and how many people were in these camps . Guest well there were 120,000 japanese and japaneseamericans taken after the evacuation order. So 120,000, 60 percent of those were japaneseamericans. And there were 10 war relocation plants around mostly in the west coast. But there were other camps as well that had prisoners of war in them. I personally counted 52 different kinds of camps, including the one at crystal city, but there may be more. Cspan what about the germans, how many camps were the germans a guest i mean, 52 in total. Cspan everything . Were there more japanese than germans . Guest yes, yes. In fact, the history of internment in our country is pretty much only understood in history books from the japaneseamerican experience because there were so many more of them. But now what were learning, those of us who are interested in this as historians, is that there were much more many more germans that were arrested that we knew. And we dont know exactly how many there were. Cspan the largest number of ancestors in this country, 50 Million People are of german ancestors, theyre at the top of the list in numbers. Guest they are, they are. Cspan how did they pick the people to go into the camps back in those days . I mean, like, how do they find the germans a guest yes, it was a problem for the president , because you know, there were a lot of those people were working in factories, you know, for the war effort, and there were so many of them. So one of the ways that they picked them was if they were not citizens of this country, if they were german born and they were not citizens, then that was one thing that cut down the list. And if they were a member of the bund, which was the american nazi party, then they were arrested. And then if they had any kind of occupation that could aid germany in the war or japan in the war, then that was it. So thats how they culled them down. But you know, the other thing is that germans and germanamericans in this country are kind of a silent majority. They dont talk about these kinds of things. I think that the bearing the burden of the holocaust is so great that they dont talk about their particular very much, they dont talk at all about the hardships they endured during the war. One of the reasons that i think the story of the germanamericans was never told in crystal city is that when i talked to the germans and germanamerican children in the camp, they told me that when their parents left crystal city, either to be exchanged or to be freed, or to be paroled, as they said, they signed at oath that they would never speak of their experience in camp, that they would not disclose it to anyone. And the secrecy oath i mean, they were afraid of the government, having been arrested once. And so the children learned didnt get much information from their parents, and then they were of course then reluctant to speak as well. Cspan why did they break their silence when you talked to them . Guest i think that they are all getting old, and then i think that the other thing is, they were they wanted to begin to understand what had happened to them and working through the documents was useful. And so you know, even after 72 years, you know, why not speak . Their children wanted to know what happened to them. Cspan heres a video of another person in your book by the name of eberhard fuhr. Guest right. Cspan this is from 2009, just talking about his experience. Guest right. Eberhard fuhr i came here when i was 18 years old into crystal city, texas, and i left here when i was 22. So i was, at the very important stage of my life while i lived here. I can say in all honesty and that the japanese plaque that called it a concentration camp is totally wrong, because it was not a concentration camp, it was an internment camp. We were treated humanely. Our medical care was very good under the auspices of the United States Public Health service. Cspan did you talk to him . And is he still alive . Guest he is. He lives in chicago, and hes a truly wonderful person. Thats an interesting thing that eb was talking about. The germans and the japanese, to this day, still dont see their internment at crystal city in the same way. The reason that the japanese call it a concentration camp is that according to their legal interpretation of that word, a concentration camp means a place where citizens of their own of your own country are held in detention behind barbed wire. Now the germans, who know that most of us think of the word concentration camp as a death camp, and specifically a nazi death camp, are just abhor the use of that. And so thats why there are two historical markers now at the camp. One for the japanese, which calls it the crystal city internment camp, and one for the germans which calls it the crystal city internment and the japanese have the concentration camp. Its an interesting thing, because in world war ii, the language of war becomes very political. Eb was one of the last of the germans out. He and his family managed to avoid exchange, and at the end of this camp, the crystal city camp, brian, was in existence until 1948, three whole years after the war was over. And in those three years, a lot of the german and japanese fathers began to File Lawsuits against the United States to keep them from being deported, because their children obviously did not want to go back to these places that they as he said, he was 18 when we arrived. So eb was one of the last out on the german side. And he is one of the most remarkable speakers on this subject. Cspan there is a man that weve got some video of a man who has a little bit of a different take. Hes japanese, actor george takei. Lets listen to 40 seconds of him. begin video clip george takei i still do remember that day when armed soldiers, soldiers with guns, bayonets on them, came to our home to order us out. I remember that as a very scary day. And you know, a child can sense your parents anxieties. So they came down with what was called a loyalty questionnaire which in its on the surface sounds outrageous. After theyve taken our property, our homes, our businesses, our freedom, and incarcerated us for a year, they want to test our loyalty. Guest its just so heartbreaking. He describes it perfectly. The moment when the instant your life changes forever when your father is taken. And from a childs eye, its just a terrifying experience. And the loyalty things, they did this in crystal city as well, where you know, you had to answer these certain questions. And if you refuse to fight against japan or in japan, it was the japanese that had to do the loyalty test, then you were called a nono boy. And if you said that you would fight, you would be a yesyes, and that was their definition of loyalty. And that caused so much of a conflict between fathers and sons in crystal city and also between brothers. There were certain there was one family, the uno family, where one of the brothers went to japan and served with the japanese military, and the other fought with the famed 442, the alljapanese unit on behalf of the United States. So you had mothers and fathers with brothers that saw it differently and always the big, huge conflicts between the fathers who did not want their sons to fight against their against japan. And the other thing is, the fathers said, look, theyve already put us in internment camps. How do we know that you wouldnt just massacre our sons . It was a crazy thing, the loyalty oaths. Cspan so what happened when you were arrested, and did you ever get your house back or the money that they took from you . Guest no. You know that the under the 1924 immigration act, japanese nobody of japanese birth was allowed to be a citizen, you couldnt become a citizen, you were exempted from it. And so when they owned land, they often had a white guy or something owning it for them in their name and those they lost all the land in the west coast that they had. Cspan why were the japanese prohibited from owning land and not the germans . Guest well the germans were allowed under to become naturalized citizens. There was a quota for them. But the japanese were not even allowed to a cspan why not . Guest well, because under the 1924 law, the way it worked is that the land owners on the west coast wanted to use these cheap japanese laborers to build the imperial valley, and they just have they had a lobby, and they just forbade them from becoming citizens. Cspan what was your take on fdr after all this . Guest i have to tell you, you know, i had two grandmothers who had fdrs portrait in both of their living rooms. And he was a hero to my family and to me. And my take on this was i was very surprised that almost the entire military and political establishment went along with all of this skullduggery, every single one of them. The only person who raised her voice against it was eleanor roosevelt, and she was shouted down. And the only thing i could come to is that, when faced with war, the president s have difficult decisions to make, and the president felt that we were on our heels and was going to do whatever he could to prosecute the war. And i have allowed the reader to make up their own decision about what they think of this. My book isnt political. But i have counted the cost of that to american born children. And crystal city stands today as a real reminder of how easy it is to open an internment camp and how hard it is to close one. And how easy racial and ethnic hysteria can take hold. And once it gets going, how do you stop it . Cspan lets go back and look at more now this is a government film, written by the government, produced by i think the department of justice. Guest right. Cspan and did they run this camp, by the way . Guest no, it was the ins. But the no, the department of justice did not run this camp. It was the immigration and Naturalization Service. Cspan lets watch. Female mail is closely tied in with morale. And within the restrictions imposed for security purposes, few limitations were placed upon the number of letters which could be sent or received. Mail was delivered to the internal security office, where it was examined by german, spanish, and japanese sensors. The daily milk delivery. At one time, there were 1,600 minor children in detention. 2,500 quarts of milk were required each day. The daily ice delivery, a very important matter in a climate which often reaches 120 degrees. end video clip cspan who provided the food and the ice and the milk . Guest the government did. The ice they provided it was a lot of it was powdered milk. You know, crystal city was a town of only 6,000 people in it. And over the course of the 1942 to 1948, there were about 6,000 internees. So in effect, the town doubled while it was there. And so a lot of people from crystal city worked at the camp, and they did that kind of thing, bringing in milk, government supplied milk from trains into the camp. But a lot of the food was grown as well by camp people themselves. Cspan when you talk to folks that lived there, what was their number one complaint about the atmosphere i mean, she talked about mail and morale. Was every piece of mail read by somebody . Guest every piece of mail was read that didnt bother the people as much. It was just simply the total lack of freedom. The lack of freedom and the and not knowing when or if you were ever going to get out of this place. And the interruption they had three schools. They had an American School where you got an American Education from texas board teachers. They had a Japanese School run by japanese internees and a German School by german internees. But the interruption in these childrens education was for some people sumi did fine with it. She was in seventh grade when her father was taken. She ultimately finished high school after the war, but there was lots of interruptions. Ingrid, who was a brilliant young person, never really her education was interrupted in the sixth grade, and she got to about to the ninth grade, but never ever got her full education. So i think for the children of the camp, just the loss of a regular life and especially an education was a terrible thing. Cspan part of your story is showing them going back to japan and back to germany. When did ingrid and sumi end up back in the United States . How long did that take . Guest it took a long time. Ill tell you about sumi first, because sumi arrived in japan and made this long walk with her family to sendai, which was, you know, up in northern japan. She saw lots and lots of terrible things along the way. Cspan the war still going on . Guest the war had just ended by the time she got there. And sumi was such a strong person that as soon as the sendai was occupied by american troops, sumi went straight to the officer and said, im an american. I have my american birth certificate. Put me to work. And so she went to work for the American Air Force in sendai and essentially saved her family from starvation. Cspan you said her two sisters also went to work there . Guest her two sisters who were in japan this whole time, they were staying with their grandfather. She got them jobs. And then sumi got everybody that she knew from crystal city who was in the Exchange Jobs at air force bases all across japan. And so these kids from crystal city went to work for the occupying forces. And so sumi did not get back to the United States, she eventually convinced her father, you know, if you are a girl at that time in the 40s, your father is like your emperor. You know, he does he tells you, you can do this, you cannot do that, and sumi was a very, very obedient daughter. And her father did not want her to go back to japan, but she finally convinced him to let her come to the United States, she finally convinced them to do that in 1947. Ingrids story is more complicated, because this represented a great big surprise in the book. You know, there i was attempting to try to find you know, i knew that there were about 1,800 germans and germanamericans, most of them from crystal city going from the gripsholm into germany. Cspan what was a gripsholm . Guest the gripsholm was a huge ship that they took trains from crystal city to new york. They boarded the gripsholm, which was a steam ship, and made a long journey, 24 days across the sea. They landed in marseilles, france, and then they went to switzerland to a small village. And it was in switzerland that the train that from crystal city, but it wasnt really its from the United States, but had all these crystal city people in it, landed at a train station in this village in switzerland. And a train coming out of germany was at the same train station, and they switched. Cspan and the war was still going on . Guest the war was still going on. And i began wonder who was on the train to freedom when ingrid and lothar and ensi were on the train into war. And by that time, there werent very there werent that Many Americans still left in germany. There were some prisoners of war that were freed. But by this astonishing thing, i learned through the National Holocaust museum that germany didnt have enough americans to give. And so they gave about 100 jews from bergenbelsen, who were not americans, obviously. They were from amsterdam and they were from germany. And there were 100 jews that made it out. And one of those jews was named Irene Hasenberg, who was exactly the same age as ingrid. And so i tell the story in the book of irene making it out when ingrid went marching straight into hell. Cspan where did you find irene . Guest irene lives in ann arbor, michigan. Shes a holocaust survivor. And went and as soon as i got the list, there were only two names of people on the list still alive Irene Hasenberg and jacob wolf. Jacob wolf lived in brooklyn, and hes recently died. But i interviewed him in brooklyn, and then i interviewed irene in ann arbor. And irene is a very, very brilliant woman and a leader in the holocaust movement. But she had no idea that she was traded for anybody, much less an american, american kids. But the best part, the best moment in the book for me, brian, was when i went to honolulu the last time for the long interview with ingrid. I didnt know that she was near death. But it turned out that several months later she did die. And were sitting there, and i decided, i showed her the list from the holocaust. And i said, you see this list . These were 100 jews who made it out of bergenbelsen when you and your brother and sister and mom and dad went into germany. And ingrids face, she just her hands came to her face and she said what . And she just she marked with her index finger each name and when she got to ingrid, she said and i said, this is the one that is exactly your age, and i showed her a picture of irene. And she said, this changes everything to me, because it makes everything that happened somewhat worthwhile, because irene and her family got out. And she said, how many people can say that they were part of Something Like that . Cspan what year did ingrid then come back to the states . Guest she came in the states in 1948 and lived with an aunt and an uncle with lothar, her brother she and her brother came together. And eventually, everyone in the eiserloh family made it back, because lothar became joined the air force and got he became very, very important to the air force and had top security clearance, and he was eventually able to get his all of his family back. And johanna, his mother, became a citizen, and mathias didnt because he died a cspan thats the father . Guest yeah. Because he died of a heart attack. So eventually, these people made it back, which says something about america and tug of freedom, that no matter how betrayed ingrid, lothar, ensi, sumi, eb were by their government by holding those kids in internment camps, they still were somehow able to put that behind them and build and transform themselves from child internees in an internment camp to loyal american citizens who raised their family and have lived exemplary lives. Cspan heres some video from 2013, and it was done by the Texas Country reporter, and its about a reunion at crystal city, texas. And one gentleman thats working hard to bring up the memories of hard to bring up the memories of all these. Male more than six decades after the war ended, former detainees and families gather at the camp for the dedication of this historic site. Heres where you were first. Then you were moved up to here. Many years have now passed, and while all through the years everything was kept as secret, today, its more coming out more and more out in the open. My parents bedroom was over here and mine was here. The barbed wire and guard towers are gone, but the memories come flooding back for so many people who, until today, had lost such a big part of their childhood. When that flag was there, that flagpole was there. We all suffered the same experience. We were to leave this camp never ever to tell anyone. It was to be kept a secret. For many released after the war, some buried the memories, and with it, the history of this camp. Now more than 60 years later, William Mcwhorter has succeeded in bringing honor to a place most folks just wanted to forget. Cspan have you been there . Guest i have. I was there that day. And thats Werner Ulrich who has done that map thats at the front of my book which shows where everyones bungalow. And mr. Mcwhorter from our Texas Historical commission is did these panels that show that some of what happened there. So slowly people are beginning to talk. But you hear werner say, it was meant to be a secret, and they were told not to speak of it. And thats the reason that its been so long in coming out. Cspan whats there for the average person that wants to go there . Guest not much. Theres just two concrete the japanese monument and the german monument and a few panels. But theres not much left there. Its the big middle of nowhere. And its a very poor city in one of the poorest counties in america. Earl harrison, who was the man who chose this location for the immigration and Naturalization Service camp, called it as close to siberia as we have in america, and its still that way. Cspan how far is it from the Mexican Border . Guest 35 miles. Cspan why did this camp stay opened until 1948 . You said opened in 42, right after the war started, and stayed open three years beyond 45. What was the reason . Guest well, once truman became president , he instituted this idea that all of those people should be deported, and all the people remaining in the camp should be deported. And there were other camps, the prisoners of war camps elsewhere in the country, and all those people that were in those camps came to crystal city. And it took a while to be for the camp to end, because people fought deportation, they hired lawyers. The germans hired lawyers and the japanese hired lawyers. And so it wasnt so easy to close the camp, and it just took three years before they could get it closed. Cspan you mentioned earlier the 442nd. Guest yes. Cspan the regiment, the combat team. Who served in that, and how did you get to serve in it, and it was u. S. . . Guest yes, it was a u. S. Unit. When war began after pearl harbor, at first, president roosevelt said no japaneseamerican could serve in the u. S. Army. As the war progressed, the president roosevelt changed his mind. And the generals decided to come up with this all japaneseamerican unit that would fight. And they recruited the people from that unit from internment camps, including the one in crystal city. So if you were in that unit, and there were and it was the most decorated unit of world war ii, it helped save the texans that were trapped in italy with huge amounts of casualties from the 442. But they actually recruited people from crystal city and other internment camps so theyre interned people. And then they are taken out of camp and go to the 442, where they fight for the United States of america. Cspan and always in germany . Guest no, in germany and in italy and in japan as well. Cspan why did you talk to anybody that served in the 442 . Guest yes. And their stories are fairly wellknown. Theres lots they were called the go for broke unit. And they did it because, the ones that i talked to said that number one, they believed in their country, and then number two, they knew no other way to prove their loyalty than to say yes. And even though it caused these enormous splits with their fathers, the other place that they served was the military intelligence unit. And so these were the people that helped break the code in japan, and they too were heroes. And they shortened the war, the mis people. And some of those people were young men from crystal city as well. Cspan you tell the story about one of the young men in the eiserohl family that went back to germany, and he was like, i think i remember 12 years old serving as a translator for the americans . Guest yes. This is lothar, ingrids brother. When the germans when the eiserohls landed at johannas, the mothers house in idstein a cspan youre going back to a guest they were in germany, after the exchange. And once the americans occupied idstein, it wasnt it didnt take much, because the people in idstein just threw down their weapons, they had some bigger rifles and things like that and threw it down. And lothar was there. And he did what sumi did, he went to the commander and said that he wanted to go to work for the American Occupying forces. And he kind of became their mascot. And as he said, you know, even though it was the war, he had a lot of fun because he rode around on tanks and he helped people translate and he helped they would what the gis were doing is they were going and requisitioning farms and villages so that they could put american troops in idstein. And lothar had a great time with those gis. Cspan and he came back and went into the service . Guest and he went back and joined the air force. Cspan heres our last video, a familiar face for a lot of our folks that watch this network. Former secretary of transportation, former congressman from california, not in crystal city, but tells this a guest beautiful story. Cspan yeah. Norman mineta and ive only seen my dad cry three times. Once was on the seventh of december because he couldnt understand why the land of his birth was now attacking the land of his heart. The second time i saw him cry was on the 31st of may, 1942 when we were boarding the trains to leave san jose to go off to camp. But here we were, a community of 13,000 people behind barbed wire with guard towers every 200300 feet with search lights and machine guns. So when we or our scout leaders said come on in to the camp for a jamboree, they said no, no, no, were not going to come in. Those are pows, were not going to go in there. end video clip cspan thats norman mineta. He was based out in heart mountain out in wyoming. In the end, how many different human beings did you talk to for this book, do you think . Guest more than a hundred people who were either who worked at the camp or who were children in the camp. Heart mountain a cspan did you record it on audio . Guest i did record some, and then some i just took notes. And so yes, you know but what mineta was saying, thats where sumi was, heart mountain. But the way that they captured the emotion about a lot they always talk about their fathers, how their fathers suffered. And they never say how they suffered. This is why i think these young people, this generation of japaneseamericans and germanamericans are just such i mean, theyre incredibly honorable people who are trying to honor their parents at the same time theyre trying to honor their country. And we wont we will never see people like this. Cspan how long did you work on this book . Guest five years. Cspan what was the hardest part . Guest i think the hardest part was getting the documents and just and uncovering the relationship between internment and Prisoner Exchange. Ive now come to the conclusion that whenever there is an internment camp or a Detention Camp or a preventive Detention Camp, one of the reasons for it is Prisoner Exchange. You have thats one of the reasons you have an internment camp. And i think that for us as americans to not be so naa ve about whats happening at Guantanamo Bay and other places. If we have places like that, i dont care what you call it. Theres a Prisoner Exchange being negotiated somehow. Cspan any new book ideas come out of doing this book . Guest i dont know yet. I mean, im just now you know, ive just now gotten this one off. But i can imagine that ill stay with world war ii, because theres a lot of stories yet to be told. Cspan is there a much video of the people that youve talked to anywhere . Guest there is a little bit of video here and there. Its not the greatest video in the world. But theyve done some videoing of videotaping of each other, people like me videotaped it. And so maybe it would be a documentary someday. Cspan our guest has been Jan Jarboe Russell from san antonio, texas. Has a book also that she wrote some years ago on lady bird johnson, and the name of this book is the train to crystal city fdrs secret Prisoner Exchange program at americas only family internment camp during world war ii. We thank you very much. Guest thank you brian. The communicators. Robert reich secretary of labor in the Clinton Administration weighed in on americas current Economic System at wisconsin book festival held in madison a few weeks ago. Good evening. My name is barbara. Im so excited to be with you tonight. [applause]