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Enemies Among Us

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John E. Schmitz examines the causes, conditions, and consequences of America’s selective relocation and internment of its own citizens and enemy aliens, as well as the effects of internment on those who experienced it.

Image courtesy of interviewee. August 30, 2024

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In this text, John discusses the motivation behind his book, "Enemies Among Us," which centers on the internment of German Americans as well as Italians during World War II, a topic he explored due to personal connections to this history. He reflects on his childhood experiences and the lack of awareness regarding his family's internment during the war. His academic journey began when he researched German American internment at the University of North Carolina and progressed through to his thesis and dissertation.

John highlights the lack of existing literature on this subject compared to the extensive works on Japanese American internment, leading him to examine and compile primary sources, including government documents, to create a comprehensive first account of internment policies affecting all three ethnic groups: Germans, Italians, and Japanese. He discusses how government fears of perceived threats influenced internment policies, with varying responses based on population size and social integration.

Moreover, he shares insight into the internment experience itself, arguing that although conditions were not as extreme as in Nazi death camps, they still had significant psychological impacts on individuals. He emphasizes the different experiences of children versus adults in internment camps.

John stresses the importance of understanding this history to avoid future injustices, drawing parallels to contemporary issues related to immigration and societal responses to perceived threats. He describes his next project focusing on internment globally, aiming to uncover similarities and differences in internment experiences across various countries during the war. The goal of his work is to foster awareness of how fear can lead to the diminishment of civil liberties, reminding readers of the potential for history to repeat itself.

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Here are five key points from the video:

1. **Personal Connection to Internment**: The speaker recounts their childhood awareness of their father's and grandparents' internment during World War II, expressing curiosity about the experience and its effects on their family's dynamics, particularly the grandfather’s demeanor.

2. **Research and Lack of Literature**: While studying at university, the speaker faced challenges due to a scarcity of resources on German American internment compared to the extensive literature available on Japanese American internment, prompting them to pursue original research and primary sources to fill this gap.

3. **Government Policies**: The speaker highlights the similarity in government policies concerning various enemy groups during the war, exploring the motivations behind internment and the perception of threats. This includes the psychological impact on families and the socio-political convideo that led to internment decisions.

4. **Public Sentiment and Fear**: Post-Pearl Harbor, there was a significant public and governmental reaction driven by fear and a desire for revenge, particularly against Japanese Americans, which contrasted with the more restrained approach toward German Americans, largely due to their larger population and economic integration.

5. **Historical Lessons and Global Convideos**: The speaker emphasizes that the experiences of internment, not just in the U.S. but globally during wartime, offer critical lessons about the consequences of fear, labeling, and policies that can unjustly affect innocent individuals. They advocate for awareness of history to prevent repeating such actions in the future.

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Here are some key quotes from the video:

1. **Personal Connection to History**:
- "Started when I was a child, and I knew that my father and his family had been interned in the Second World War."

2. **Seeking Knowledge**:
- "I wanted to do research on the subject of German American internment... nothing on the Germans or the Italians, so I wanted to know more."

3. **Impact of Government Policies**:
- "I found that by sort of expanding the sort of chronological ethnic racial frame of it all, you started to get different answers... remarkable similarity in government policy, um, tempered on... perceived threats."

4. **On Family Support**:
- "But it was really my father... who sort of supported me. He came up, helped me do some of the archival work, and it was really sort of family history."

5. **The Stigma of Internment**:
- "And then why as a child did I even feel sort of shame? Like I just at first didn't want to talk about this."

6. **Historical Convideo and Fear**:
- "The government acted... in a pretty horrific way, but understandable in the sense of the fears at the time, which were pervasive."

7. **Rhetoric and Perception of Others**:
- "If you start to apply words and labels... you start to get an us versus them mentality."

8. **On Relocation Policies**:
- "Relocation did not involve a trial. Internment did, but they were forced to move just like well over a hundred thousand."

9. **Caution Against Repeating History**:
- "I hope what people take away is that it can happen again. And it has happened again recently... Families split apart... just by the fact that they're looking for a better life."

10. **Understanding the Impact on Innocent Lives**:
- "By far, the vast majority of people, in turn were innocents... suffered just because of... wrong place, wrong time, who they were."

11. **Historical Reflection**:
- "History isn't just was, it's is. And it can inform us and maybe we can make better decisions going forward."

These quotes reflect the speaker's journey in understanding the past, the implications of internment policies, as well as the relevance of history to present-day issues.

X-TIMESTAMP-MAP:LOCAL=00:00:00.000,MPEGTS=900000

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Started when I was a, a child, and I knew that my father

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and his family had been interned in the Second World War,

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and I really didn't know that much about it.

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Um, my dad didn't say too much about it.

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Um, the few times I saw my grandparents,

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especially my grandfather, he always seemed somewhat suen.

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And as a child, I never quite understood why,

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like just didn't seem to be a happy person.

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And then when I got to UNC Chapel Hill, I wanted

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to do research on the subject of German American internment.

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There was a already, and this is in the 1980s,

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a pretty substantial literature dealing

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with Japanese American relocation

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and a little bit internment.

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And there's a distinction with the difference

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that I can touch on later, but nothing on the Germans

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or the Italians, so I wanted to know more.

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But at the time, and being in Chapel Hill

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and being a poor college student, I couldn't afford really

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to do archival research or anything like that.

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So I had to wait till I was working my master's degree at NC

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State, and I went out to Tempe, Arizona

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and got in touch with, a former attorney.

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His name was Art Jacobs.

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He was interned in the same camp as it turned out,

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crystal City, Texas at the same time

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as a child, as my father.

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And he had a treasure trove of primary sources.

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So from that initial introduction, I was able

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to find out more through foia Freedom of Information Act,

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archival research,

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especially at Archives two and College Park.

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Uh, and that then pushed me to write my MA thesis,

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which was the first work.

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And this is the mid 1990s on German American internment.

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Nothing had been written before that time.

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Then when I was working on my dissertation, one

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of my advisors recommended looking at all three

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major groups, which I knew would sort of triple the work.

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At first I was reluctant to do it,

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but it turned out to yield a far better dissertation

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and ultimately a far better book

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and enemies among us, as it's the first work

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to look at all three major, so-called enemy groups,

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no other work has has done that.

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And I found that by sort of expanding the sort

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of chronological ethnic racial frame of it all,

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you started to get different answers, right?

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If you ask different questions, you often start

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to get different answers.

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And what I found was remarkable similarity

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in government policy, tempered on, you know, politics,

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military economics, backgrounds,

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perceived threats and and so forth.

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So the government acted,

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and I think in, in a pretty horrific way,

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but understandable in the sense of the fears at the time,

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which were pervasive, you know, fears

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of the so-called pip column,

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internal enemies and that sort of thing.

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But it was really my father, who died,

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just a few years ago actually, who sort of supported me.

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He came up, helped me do some of the archival work,

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and it was really sort of family history.

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I wanted to know more about why,

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and then why as a child did I even feel sort of shame?

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Like I just at first didn't want to talk about this.

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It seemed embarrassing. And, I think

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It was the same with former internees.

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It was just something that they would sooner forget

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as the United States was, gearing up for war,

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but not technically in war, right?

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As we had into 19 39, 19 40, there were thousands

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of Americans abroad for various reasons, you know, work,

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missionary work, people traveling and, and and so forth.

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And as we got into the war, thousands were able to escape,

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make it, made it back to the United States,

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but many thousands did not, and were caught.

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And, the Empire of Japan

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and Nazi Germany started interning Americans.

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And much of the, the president of this goes back

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to World War I, the first World War.

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And what happened then was, you know, Germany,

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Japan had thousands of Americans, we wanted them back,

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and then attorneys kind of became ex,

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what I call exchange pay.

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So we have yours, u have ours,

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and by the way, some of the primary sources show

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that there were implicit and explicit threats.

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You harm ours, we've got yours.

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And when rumors of, for example, sterilization came out,

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the Japanese then threatened to do the same thing

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to Americans that they were holding in their camps.

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And then very quickly we got the Red Cross,

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and I think the Swedish location to, you know,

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refute those rumors, just saying that they were not true.

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And on our side, we said, you know, if we find out that you,

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the Japanese government

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or military are mistreating ours, expect the dire

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of consequences, which of course happened anyway

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with the atomic bombings and,

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and carpet bombings and so forth.

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But early on, too, on the other side with Germany,

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they found out that we were interning,

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German Americans in camps up in New York,

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and this is now the wintertime and in tents.

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And then they threatened to do the same thing to us,

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to Americans that they held.

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So there was, they developed

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what I call the benevolent reciprocity.

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And part of the idea was to get Americans back,

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and then at first, interestingly enough to get rid

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of dangerous or bad German Americans.

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But then there was a hiatus

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because we started to figure out

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maybe this isn't the best thing.

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Like we're getting rid of people

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that Germany potentially can use.

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And we got bad, what we called back bad Americans, people

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that we didn't really want.

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And we thought Germany and Japan were getting better in the

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better part of that deal.

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And so there was a hiatus,

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and then later we exchanged what were called in documents,

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bottom of the barrel types, prisoners, people

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who weren't very smart, people

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who we thought weren't useful, that sort of thing.

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What I did was I spent a, a couple

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of summers at the National Archives,

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mainly National Archives to College Park,

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and collected some 10,000 pages of documents

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and easy to calculate at the time,

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because they were a dime a copy.

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Just do the math. I'm not a math

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person, but even I could do that.

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And so I'm currently working on a second book

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that looks at interment globally.

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So there are a few thousand documents that

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I had did not use directly for, for this book,

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but, enemies Among Us is primary,

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is mainly primary source driven.

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Uh, it relies on thousands of documents, many

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of which had never been seen before or used before.

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Um, and they involve conversations, you know,

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high up in the war departments, state Department,

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immigration naturalization service,

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state Department, et cetera.

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Uh, but also communications among lower level officials

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that I found really intriguing.

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And some of them were warning their superiors about us

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policies, like grabbing people from Central

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and South America, Germans

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and Japanese living in other countries, getting them

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for sort of spurious reasons, taking them

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to the United States, charging them with the legal entry,

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and then swapping them for like Costa Ricans or Nicaraguans

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or Mexicans, Peruvians, et cetera.

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So the United States kind of acted as a clearinghouse

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for some 6,600 ish, I think, aliens,

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you know, from those countries.

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So we not only swapped Americans for, you know,

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Americans abroad for Germans and Japanese Italians here,

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but we also acted as a sort

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of hemispheric powerhouse in the exchange engine

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for those countries as well.

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Causes are really interesting.

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So in the months after Pearl Harbor, it was sort

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of like a lull or column

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before the storm, I think Americans were trying

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to process what had happened.

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And at first nothing really bad happened,

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but starting mid

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to late February is when there was a change,

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and it was what I call the fifth column consensus.

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So media, war departments, state department,

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public officials, governors, mayors, normal citizens.

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It was sort of this crescendo,

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and it just created this synergy, this energy

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and demands that something be done.

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And there was just enough ironically to happen.

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And then the ironic part is what didn't happen, right?

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The Sherlock Holmes haunted

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baskervilles, that dog that didn't bark.

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So the more time that went on that nothing major happened,

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many Americans thought that means something really big

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and sinister is in the works, right?

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They're up to something and fear

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of a West coast invasion especially.

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And then the anger, and I saw this in hundreds

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and hundreds of letters written to FDR and postcards.

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Um, they were relatively polite about

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how they addressed the Japanese,

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but what they wanted to do to them was pretty horrific.

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Um, and just the, the animus and the, the quest for revenge.

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And, not so much with German Americans

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and much less with Italians.

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Um, there's this famous quote where FDR said, you know,

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the Italians don't mind them so much.

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They're a bunch of opera singers,

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but it said the Germans, they might be dangerous.

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But one of the things that really helped the

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Germans were just numbers.

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There were just too many of them.

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And the primary goal, of course, of the United States,

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is with any nation state, was to win the war.

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And the bean counters in the State Department War Department

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told FDR simply that if you start

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to relocate German Americans en mass, like by the hundreds

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of thousands or even millions, we, we can't win the

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War. Germans

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were just too integrated, economically,

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politically too big voting block.

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Um, and were involved in industry,

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but nevertheless, some 30 to 40,000 are best estimates.

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Germans were relocated from both coasts, east

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and west forcibly relocated.

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And relocation did not involve a trial.

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Um, internment did,

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but they were forced to move just like

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well over a hundred thousand.

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And where the numbers also mattered were the Hawaiian

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Islands where very little was done

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to the Japanese American population in large part

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because they constituted some 37%

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of Hawaii's overall population, which of course,

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not a state, not to 1959,

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but they were a huge portion, 37% of the islands population,

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and you can't lock up a third of the people.

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You, you can't do it.

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So almost nothing was done to them versus being 1% Japanese

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along the West coast in California

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where you can do something easily

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distinguishable, easy to move.

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And many Americans also thought it'd be kind of a test

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of patriotism, right?

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Like they wouldn't so much mind for the go

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of the war effort, right?

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Like, that's what you can do to help us, like go ahead,

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be locked up, be taken away,

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and, you know, display your sense of loyalty

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and patriotism to the nation.

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Experiences varied.

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Um, none of these in, in internment camps

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or anything like the arbit loggers, you know, the war camps,

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much less the death camps in Nazi Germany.

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So one should not confuse those at all, yet are still,

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my father, for example, and his family were intern in

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Crystal City, Texas after a short stint at Ellis Island.

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Ellis Island was converted into an internment center

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during the war with inside of course, of Statue of Liberty.

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So after a few months there, they were sent

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for three years from the summer of 43 to the summer of 1946.

10:44.035 --> 10:48.695
And as most people know, the war ended, in May of 1945,

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early April, may 45 in Europe.

10:51.075 --> 10:54.175
So many attorneys still remained interned for a year or two,

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or even three, including Crystal City after the war.

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And for older people like my grandfather

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or older at the time in his thirties, there was

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what was called barbed wire disease.

11:04.395 --> 11:08.615
The psychological impact, right? Where you are uprooted.

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And they had lived in New York City at the time,

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had been living there, and of course, you lose your job,

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you lose your income, most lost their property,

11:17.415 --> 11:18.955
and you're behind barbed wire, right?

11:18.955 --> 11:20.235
You lose your freedom of movement,

11:20.975 --> 11:22.355
the stigma associated with it.

11:22.775 --> 11:26.485
My dad, by contrast, was seven when he went in.

11:26.905 --> 11:28.965
So I don't think he fully understood

11:29.845 --> 11:31.065
the, the context, right?

11:31.065 --> 11:32.545
You could clearly see the barbed wire,

11:32.545 --> 11:34.625
you could see the security towers, the cars,

11:34.725 --> 11:35.865
the guns, that sort of thing.

11:36.245 --> 11:39.385
But he went to school. Um, there are all sorts of events,

11:39.765 --> 11:42.025
games, the sports for the kids.

11:42.105 --> 11:44.145
There's a swimming pool that attorneys constructed.

11:44.845 --> 11:48.025
So, Joseph O'Rourke O'Rourke, who was the,

11:48.025 --> 11:51.505
crystal City, sort of commandant commander, tried

11:51.505 --> 11:53.925
to make his life as good as possible for all,

11:53.985 --> 11:55.205
but especially for the children.

11:56.265 --> 11:58.885
So I think young kids had a very different

11:59.255 --> 12:01.205
experience, in these camps.

12:01.305 --> 12:03.965
But folks in their teens, mid to late teens

12:04.065 --> 12:06.145
and adults, very different.

12:06.405 --> 12:09.425
And I think, as I mentioned, at the beginning, that kind

12:09.425 --> 12:12.945
of explains my grandfather's sort of sullenness.

12:13.045 --> 12:16.825
He just seemed sad, and now I understand why.

12:17.565 --> 12:19.345
Um, I think he felt betrayed.

12:19.645 --> 12:22.825
Uh, and by the way, my grandparents came over in mid

12:23.005 --> 12:24.065
to late 1920.

12:24.165 --> 12:26.305
So they'd been in country about 13,

12:26.505 --> 12:28.585
14 years when the United States declared war.

12:28.605 --> 12:30.225
And they became, just so, you know,

12:30.355 --> 12:32.185
enemy aliens by definition.

12:32.645 --> 12:33.665
So they were aliens.

12:34.285 --> 12:37.905
But the statutory authority goes way back to 70 17, 98

12:37.905 --> 12:39.825
and what were called the Alien and Sedition X.

12:40.245 --> 12:43.345
So once the United States goes to war, any resident

12:43.345 --> 12:45.305
of the United States who is not a citizen

12:45.765 --> 12:48.145
or resident of another nation becomes by definition

12:48.715 --> 12:50.985
enemy alien, and then subject to apprehension,

12:51.535 --> 12:53.465
detention, expulsion.

12:54.475 --> 12:58.215
And so you lack some basic civil rights, right, as an alien.

12:58.595 --> 12:59.935
And, and that's, that was it.

13:00.205 --> 13:01.455
That as far as I know,

13:01.595 --> 13:03.455
and we did FOIA requests,

13:03.455 --> 13:06.175
was the only reason my grandfather was rounded up.

13:06.195 --> 13:07.615
And I, my grandmother

13:08.395 --> 13:10.935
and dad, since your, you know, dad was a citizen, they were

13:10.935 --> 13:12.655
what were known as voluntary attorneys.

13:13.095 --> 13:15.695
'cause the government was mainly after the men, in order

13:15.695 --> 13:19.175
to exchange, but they didn't want seven year olds, you know,

13:19.595 --> 13:21.375
what are you gonna do with a 7-year-old kid?

13:21.955 --> 13:25.375
So they gave them the option to be, quote unquote,

13:25.535 --> 13:28.785
voluntarily interned, which they did for decades.

13:29.445 --> 13:31.865
Uh, the focus was on the Japanese American experience,

13:31.865 --> 13:33.065
mainly relocates.

13:33.165 --> 13:37.705
And there are hundreds of, of great works, out there,

13:37.725 --> 13:40.825
you know, personal experiences, folks that deal with policy,

13:41.565 --> 13:45.665
like the, and Supreme Court decisions like Korematsu,

13:45.665 --> 13:48.145
you know, the six three decision in from October

13:48.165 --> 13:49.305
to December of 1944.

13:49.845 --> 13:52.505
Um, but there's a massive literature,

13:52.645 --> 13:56.505
and then in the 1980s, 1990s, that started to, to shift.

13:57.325 --> 13:59.945
And, like I said, my master's thesis was the first

13:59.945 --> 14:01.105
to look at German Americans.

14:01.105 --> 14:02.385
And then as you go through the nineties

14:02.765 --> 14:05.305
and in the two thousands more books,

14:05.375 --> 14:07.665
oral histories on Germans and Italians,

14:07.665 --> 14:09.465
and looking at Germans and Japanese

14:09.465 --> 14:11.185
and Italians in Central and South America.

14:12.005 --> 14:14.185
Um, so it is become much more, I think,

14:14.215 --> 14:17.625
inclusive in the sense of the totality of experience

14:17.685 --> 14:19.345
by all sorts of groups.

14:19.345 --> 14:21.785
There were a handful, by the way, of Hungarian, Romanians,

14:22.105 --> 14:25.385
Bulgarians, literally a few handfuls also in turn,

14:25.515 --> 14:27.865
there were experiences, you know, regarding diplomats,

14:27.885 --> 14:30.705
but most of these were ordinary people caught up in

14:30.705 --> 14:31.745
extraordinary times.

14:32.525 --> 14:34.625
Uh, my grandfather, for example, had about a sixth

14:34.625 --> 14:37.425
or seventh grade education and was a waiter.

14:37.725 --> 14:38.825
So looking back on it,

14:38.925 --> 14:41.945
and my grandmother was just, you know,

14:42.285 --> 14:44.305
and I shouldn't say just a housewife, but a housewife.

14:44.605 --> 14:47.585
And looking at my grandma later, it's hard to imagine her

14:47.585 --> 14:50.665
as a security threat or my grandfather for that matter.

14:51.105 --> 14:54.325
Um, but yet, you know, it, it's powerful what,

14:54.955 --> 14:55.975
what fear can do.

14:56.295 --> 15:00.055
I hope what they take is that, you know, nation states,

15:00.055 --> 15:01.455
and there's a whole literature on this too,

15:01.515 --> 15:02.935
or imagine communities, you know,

15:02.935 --> 15:04.935
Benedict Anderson wrote that decades ago.

15:05.355 --> 15:07.015
Um, and the United States especially,

15:07.015 --> 15:08.615
were an artificial construct, right?

15:08.615 --> 15:09.735
We're based on ideas.

15:10.475 --> 15:12.535
And if you attack those ideas enough,

15:12.675 --> 15:15.335
and Nietzsche said, what things are called is incomparably

15:15.335 --> 15:16.615
more important than what they are?

15:17.035 --> 15:20.135
So, for example, native Americans using the most popular

15:20.225 --> 15:21.295
descriptor, savage,

15:22.075 --> 15:23.535
or in the minds of many, that's

15:23.535 --> 15:26.395
what Native Americans become, you know, these thousands

15:26.395 --> 15:27.555
of different groups, right?

15:27.975 --> 15:29.955
And the same thing I think with individuals.

15:30.015 --> 15:32.315
If you start to apply words

15:32.375 --> 15:35.555
and labels, like how we do today with illegals,

15:35.895 --> 15:37.635
unless you, yourself made the planet,

15:38.055 --> 15:41.195
how can a person living on the planet being illegal on a

15:41.195 --> 15:42.955
planet that you yourself didn't create, right?

15:42.955 --> 15:44.715
So I, I didn't think of it. One world, one people,

15:45.415 --> 15:46.995
but not everyone looks at it like that.

15:47.095 --> 15:50.675
So I think, you know, sort of built in

15:50.815 --> 15:54.395
or baked into the human condition, it's a sense of sort

15:54.395 --> 15:57.635
of us, them tribalism and, and that sort of thing.

15:57.855 --> 16:01.235
So I hope what people take away is that it can happen again.

16:01.655 --> 16:03.635
And it has happened again recently, right?

16:04.075 --> 16:07.475
Families split apart putting cages, just by the fact

16:07.475 --> 16:08.955
that they're looking for a better life

16:09.055 --> 16:10.555
or they want to seek a better life.

16:10.555 --> 16:13.075
They're fleeing persecution, that sort of thing.

16:13.655 --> 16:17.195
Um, and by far, the vast majority of people,

16:17.335 --> 16:18.675
in turn were innocents.

16:18.675 --> 16:20.755
There were a few here and there that of course, were not,

16:21.375 --> 16:24.795
but thousands suffered, just

16:24.795 --> 16:28.835
because of, you know, not taking out papers, wrong place,

16:28.835 --> 16:30.275
wrong time, who they were.

16:31.695 --> 16:34.755
And, and that's what I want people to, to take away that it,

16:34.815 --> 16:38.035
it can and might happen again.

16:38.495 --> 16:41.075
And I, I think the more where we are of that, just like,

16:41.075 --> 16:43.665
you know, with, with a genocide, right?

16:43.945 --> 16:47.385
Thoughts, words and deeds, or creating laws and policies,

16:47.655 --> 16:49.705
because once those are articulated,

16:50.125 --> 16:53.905
and if enough people buy into it, which most Americans did,

16:53.905 --> 16:55.665
by the way, most Americans supported

16:55.975 --> 16:56.985
what happened at the time,

16:57.245 --> 16:59.345
the vast majority thought it was the right thing to do.

16:59.605 --> 17:02.545
And retrospect that luckily has changed.

17:03.045 --> 17:05.185
But I, I think we need to be really careful

17:05.735 --> 17:08.465
anytime an event happens with this sort of, you know,

17:08.545 --> 17:10.465
whiplash and then backlash, right?

17:10.465 --> 17:14.945
Trying to seek revenge on people who likely had nothing

17:14.945 --> 17:15.985
to do with the event itself.

17:16.005 --> 17:18.625
The new book, I'm really excited about it, it looks at,

17:18.645 --> 17:19.665
in turn, globally.

17:20.165 --> 17:23.345
So currently I'm looking at, Stanley Camp in Hong Kong,

17:23.805 --> 17:27.145
and it's gonna look at camps in, in Europe, Africa,

17:27.655 --> 17:30.945
central America, Southeast Asia, of course,

17:30.945 --> 17:33.945
the United States, and compare, experiences

17:33.955 --> 17:36.945
among attorneys, including Dutch and British, and Americans

17:36.945 --> 17:38.785
and Germans and, and and so forth.

17:39.245 --> 17:41.345
Um, so I wanna try to find out, you know, what's similar,

17:41.565 --> 17:43.225
what's different,

17:43.685 --> 17:45.785
and some of these common experiences that, that again,

17:45.785 --> 17:48.825
involve literally tens and tens and tens of thousands of

17:48.825 --> 17:49.825
People globally.

17:49.945 --> 17:53.005
And that's what intern and, repatriated, repatriation,

17:53.005 --> 17:56.005
excuse me, in exchange meant, was this mass movement

17:56.425 --> 17:59.605
of literally tens and tens of thousands of people globally.

18:00.185 --> 18:02.325
And when I was in high school, college, I had no idea

18:02.835 --> 18:04.445
that any of this was going on.

18:04.475 --> 18:06.605
Like, I knew a little bit about prisoners of war.

18:07.105 --> 18:08.405
You could figure something was going

18:08.405 --> 18:09.445
on with diplomats, of course.

18:09.825 --> 18:13.245
But again, these are ordinary people in extraordinary times.

18:13.625 --> 18:16.965
And, you know, people still today continue to suffer,

18:17.675 --> 18:18.965
because of who they are,

18:18.975 --> 18:20.365
where they live, that sort of thing.

18:20.465 --> 18:24.285
So that's another big takeaway that if people can look into

18:24.285 --> 18:27.045
what has happened in the past, you know,

18:27.065 --> 18:30.205
has often been said, history isn't just was, it's is.

18:30.865 --> 18:32.605
And, it, it can inform us

18:32.665 --> 18:35.525
and then maybe we can make better decisions going forward.

"Unearthing Hidden Histories: A Personal Journey into German American Internment during WWII"

00:00:00 - Started when I was a, a child, and I knew that my father and his family had been interned in the Second World War, and I really didn't know that much about it. my dad didn't say too much about it. the few times I saw my grandparents, especially my grandfather, he always seemed somewhat suen. And as a child, I never quite understood why, like just didn't seem to be a happy person. And then when I got to UNC Chapel Hill, I wanted to do research on the subject of German American internment. There was a already, and this is in the 1980s, a pretty substantial literature dealing with Japanese American relocation and a little bit internment. And there's a distinction with the difference that I can touch on later, but nothing on the Germans or the Italians, so I wanted to know more.
00:00:46 - and being a poor college student, I couldn't afford really to do archival research or anything like that. So I had to wait till I was working my master's degree at NC State, and I went out to Tempe, Arizona and got in touch with, a former attorney. His name was Art Jacobs. He was interned in the same camp as it turned out, crystal City, Texas at the same time as a child, as my father. And he had a treasure trove of primary sources. So from that initial introduction, I was able to find out more through foia Freedom of Information Act, archival research, especially at Archives two and College Park. and that then pushed me to write my MA thesis,
00:01:26 - And this is the mid 1990s on German American internment. Nothing had been written before that time. Then when I was working on my dissertation, one of my advisors recommended looking at all three major groups, which I knew would sort of triple the work. At first I was reluctant to do it, but it turned out to yield a far better dissertation and ultimately a far better book and enemies among us, as it's the first work to look at all three major, so-called enemy groups, no other work has has done that. And I found that by sort of expanding the sort of chronological ethnic racial frame of it all, you started to get different answers, right? If you ask different questions, you often start
00:02:08 - And what I found was remarkable similarity in government policy, tempered on, you know, politics, military economics, backgrounds, perceived threats and and so forth. So the government acted, and I think in, in a pretty horrific way, but understandable in the sense of the fears at the time, which were pervasive, you know, fears of the so-called pip column, internal enemies and that sort of thing. But it was really my father, who died, just a few years ago actually, who sort of supported me. He came up, helped me do some of the archival work, and it was really sort of family history.
00:02:50 - and then why as a child did I even feel sort of shame? Like I just at first didn't want to talk about this. It seemed embarrassing. And, I think It was the same with former internees. It was just something that they would sooner forget as the United States was, gearing up for war, but not technically in war, right? As we had into 19 39, 19 40, there were thousands of Americans abroad for various reasons, you know, work, missionary work, people traveling and, and and so forth. And as we got into the war, thousands were able to escape, make it, made it back to the United States, but many thousands did not, and were caught.
00:03:33 - and Nazi Germany started interning Americans. And much of the, the president of this goes back to World War I, the first World War. And what happened then was, you know, Germany, Japan had thousands of Americans, we wanted them back, and then attorneys kind of became ex, what I call exchange pay. So we have yours, u have ours, and by the way, some of the primary sources show that there were implicit and explicit threats. You harm ours, we've got yours. And when rumors of, for example, sterilization came out, the Japanese then threatened to do the same thing to Americans that they were holding in their camps.

"Benevolent Reciprocity: The Complex Dynamics of Internment and Exchange during World War II"

00:04:14 - and I think the Swedish location to, you know, refute those rumors, just saying that they were not true. And on our side, we said, you know, if we find out that you, the Japanese government or military are mistreating ours, expect the dire of consequences, which of course happened anyway with the atomic bombings and, and carpet bombings and so forth. But early on, too, on the other side with Germany, they found out that we were interning, German Americans in camps up in New York, and this is now the wintertime and in tents. And then they threatened to do the same thing to us, to Americans that they held. So there was, they developed what I call the benevolent reciprocity.
00:04:55 - and then at first, interestingly enough to get rid of dangerous or bad German Americans. But then there was a hiatus because we started to figure out maybe this isn't the best thing. Like we're getting rid of people that Germany potentially can use. And we got bad, what we called back bad Americans, people that we didn't really want. And we thought Germany and Japan were getting better in the better part of that deal. And so there was a hiatus, and then later we exchanged what were called in documents, bottom of the barrel types, prisoners, people who weren't very smart, people who we thought weren't useful, that sort of thing.
00:05:35 - of summers at the National Archives, mainly National Archives to College Park, and collected some 10,000 pages of documents and easy to calculate at the time, because they were a dime a copy. Just do the math. I'm not a math person, but even I could do that. And so I'm currently working on a second book that looks at interment globally. So there are a few thousand documents that I had did not use directly for, for this book, but, enemies Among Us is primary, is mainly primary source driven. it relies on thousands of documents, many of which had never been seen before or used before. and they involve conversations, you know, high up in the war departments, state Department,
00:06:17 - state Department, et cetera. but also communications among lower level officials that I found really intriguing. And some of them were warning their superiors about us policies, like grabbing people from Central and South America, Germans and Japanese living in other countries, getting them for sort of spurious reasons, taking them to the United States, charging them with the legal entry, and then swapping them for like Costa Ricans or Nicaraguans or Mexicans, Peruvians, et cetera. So the United States kind of acted as a clearinghouse for some 6,600 ish, I think, aliens, you know, from those countries. So we not only swapped Americans for, you know,
00:06:59 - but we also acted as a sort of hemispheric powerhouse in the exchange engine for those countries as well. Causes are really interesting. So in the months after Pearl Harbor, it was sort of like a lull or column before the storm, I think Americans were trying to process what had happened. And at first nothing really bad happened, but starting mid to late February is when there was a change, and it was what I call the fifth column consensus. So media, war departments, state department, public officials, governors, mayors, normal citizens. It was sort of this crescendo, and it just created this synergy, this energy
00:07:42 - And there was just enough ironically to happen. And then the ironic part is what didn't happen, right? The Sherlock Holmes haunted baskervilles, that dog that didn't bark. So the more time that went on that nothing major happened, many Americans thought that means something really big and sinister is in the works, right? They're up to something and fear of a West coast invasion especially. And then the anger, and I saw this in hundreds and hundreds of letters written to FDR and postcards. they were relatively polite about how they addressed the Japanese, but what they wanted to do to them was pretty horrific. and just the, the animus and the, the quest for revenge.

The Complexities of Internment: Differing Experiences and National Priorities during WWII**

00:08:22 - and much less with Italians. there's this famous quote where FDR said, you know, the Italians don't mind them so much. They're a bunch of opera singers, but it said the Germans, they might be dangerous. But one of the things that really helped the Germans were just numbers. There were just too many of them. And the primary goal, of course, of the United States, is with any nation state, was to win the war. And the bean counters in the State Department War Department told FDR simply that if you start to relocate German Americans en mass, like by the hundreds of thousands or even millions, we, we can't win the War. Germans were just too integrated, economically, politically too big voting block.
00:09:03 - but nevertheless, some 30 to 40,000 are best estimates. Germans were relocated from both coasts, east and west forcibly relocated. And relocation did not involve a trial. internment did, but they were forced to move just like well over a hundred thousand. And where the numbers also mattered were the Hawaiian Islands where very little was done to the Japanese American population in large part because they constituted some 37% of Hawaii's overall population, which of course, not a state, not to 1959, but they were a huge portion, 37% of the islands population, and you can't lock up a third of the people.
00:09:44 - So almost nothing was done to them versus being 1% Japanese along the West coast in California where you can do something easily distinguishable, easy to move. And many Americans also thought it'd be kind of a test of patriotism, right? Like they wouldn't so much mind for the go of the war effort, right? Like, that's what you can do to help us, like go ahead, be locked up, be taken away, and, you know, display your sense of loyalty and patriotism to the nation. Experiences varied. none of these in, in internment camps or anything like the arbit loggers, you know, the war camps, much less the death camps in Nazi Germany. So one should not confuse those at all, yet are still,
00:10:29 - Crystal City, Texas after a short stint at Ellis Island. Ellis Island was converted into an internment center during the war with inside of course, of Statue of Liberty. So after a few months there, they were sent for three years from the summer of 43 to the summer of 1946. And as most people know, the war ended, in May of 1945, early April, may 45 in Europe. So many attorneys still remained interned for a year or two, or even three, including Crystal City after the war. And for older people like my grandfather or older at the time in his thirties, there was what was called barbed wire disease. The psychological impact, right? Where you are uprooted.
00:11:11 - had been living there, and of course, you lose your job, you lose your income, most lost their property, and you're behind barbed wire, right? You lose your freedom of movement, the stigma associated with it. My dad, by contrast, was seven when he went in. So I don't think he fully understood the, the context, right? You could clearly see the barbed wire, you could see the security towers, the cars, the guns, that sort of thing. But he went to school. there are all sorts of events, games, the sports for the kids. There's a swimming pool that attorneys constructed. So, Joseph O'Rourke O'Rourke, who was the, crystal City, sort of commandant commander, tried
00:11:53 - but especially for the children. So I think young kids had a very different experience, in these camps. But folks in their teens, mid to late teens and adults, very different. And I think, as I mentioned, at the beginning, that kind of explains my grandfather's sort of sullenness. He just seemed sad, and now I understand why. I think he felt betrayed. and by the way, my grandparents came over in mid to late 1920. So they'd been in country about 13, 14 years when the United States declared war. And they became, just so, you know, enemy aliens by definition.

"Nationhood, Fear, and the Impact of Wartime Policies on Innocent Lives"

00:12:34 - But the statutory authority goes way back to 70 17, 98 and what were called the Alien and Sedition X. So once the United States goes to war, any resident of the United States who is not a citizen or resident of another nation becomes by definition enemy alien, and then subject to apprehension, detention, expulsion. And so you lack some basic civil rights, right, as an alien. And, and that's, that was it. That as far as I know, and we did FOIA requests, was the only reason my grandfather was rounded up. And I, my grandmother and dad, since your, you know, dad was a citizen, they were what were known as voluntary attorneys.
00:13:15 - to exchange, but they didn't want seven year olds, you know, what are you gonna do with a 7-year-old kid? So they gave them the option to be, quote unquote, voluntarily interned, which they did for decades. the focus was on the Japanese American experience, mainly relocates. And there are hundreds of, of great works, out there, you know, personal experiences, folks that deal with policy, like the, and Supreme Court decisions like Korematsu, you know, the six three decision in from October to December of 1944. but there's a massive literature, and then in the 1980s, 1990s, that started to, to shift.
00:13:59 - to look at German Americans. And then as you go through the nineties and in the two thousands more books, oral histories on Germans and Italians, and looking at Germans and Japanese and Italians in Central and South America. so it is become much more, I think, inclusive in the sense of the totality of experience by all sorts of groups. There were a handful, by the way, of Hungarian, Romanians, Bulgarians, literally a few handfuls also in turn, there were experiences, you know, regarding diplomats, but most of these were ordinary people caught up in extraordinary times. my grandfather, for example, had about a sixth or seventh grade education and was a waiter.
00:14:38 - and my grandmother was just, you know, and I shouldn't say just a housewife, but a housewife. And looking at my grandma later, it's hard to imagine her as a security threat or my grandfather for that matter. but yet, you know, it, it's powerful what, what fear can do. I hope what they take is that, you know, nation states, and there's a whole literature on this too, or imagine communities, you know, Benedict Anderson wrote that decades ago. and the United States especially, were an artificial construct, right? We're based on ideas. And if you attack those ideas enough, and Nietzsche said, what things are called is incomparably more important than what they are? So, for example, native Americans using the most popular
00:15:22 - or in the minds of many, that's what Native Americans become, you know, these thousands of different groups, right? And the same thing I think with individuals. If you start to apply words and labels, like how we do today with illegals, unless you, yourself made the planet, how can a person living on the planet being illegal on a planet that you yourself didn't create, right? So I, I didn't think of it. One world, one people, but not everyone looks at it like that. So I think, you know, sort of built in or baked into the human condition, it's a sense of sort of us, them tribalism and, and that sort of thing. So I hope what people take away is that it can happen again.
00:16:04 - Families split apart putting cages, just by the fact that they're looking for a better life or they want to seek a better life. They're fleeing persecution, that sort of thing. and by far, the vast majority of people, in turn were innocents. There were a few here and there that of course, were not, but thousands suffered, just because of, you know, not taking out papers, wrong place, wrong time, who they were. And, and that's what I want people to, to take away that it, it can and might happen again. And I, I think the more where we are of that, just like, you know, with, with a genocide, right?

"Lessons from History: The Risks of Collective Fear and the Importance of Global Understanding in Times of Crisis"

00:16:47 - because once those are articulated, and if enough people buy into it, which most Americans did, by the way, most Americans supported what happened at the time, the vast majority thought it was the right thing to do. And retrospect that luckily has changed. But I, I think we need to be really careful anytime an event happens with this sort of, you know, whiplash and then backlash, right? Trying to seek revenge on people who likely had nothing to do with the event itself. The new book, I'm really excited about it, it looks at, in turn, globally. So currently I'm looking at, Stanley Camp in Hong Kong, and it's gonna look at camps in, in Europe, Africa,
00:17:30 - the United States, and compare, experiences among attorneys, including Dutch and British, and Americans and Germans and, and and so forth. so I wanna try to find out, you know, what's similar, what's different, and some of these common experiences that, that again, involve literally tens and tens and tens of thousands of People globally. And that's what intern and, repatriated, repatriation, excuse me, in exchange meant, was this mass movement of literally tens and tens of thousands of people globally. And when I was in high school, college, I had no idea that any of this was going on. Like, I knew a little bit about prisoners of war. You could figure something was going
00:18:32 - But again, these are ordinary people in extraordinary times. And, you know, people still today continue to suffer, because of who they are, where they live, that sort of thing. So that's another big takeaway that if people can look into what has happened in the past, you know, has often been said, history isn't just was, it's is. And, it, it can inform us and then maybe we can make better decisions going forward.

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