Comment

The Train to Crystal City

FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II
May 23, 2016DorisWaggoner rated this title 5 out of 5 stars
Well balanced history, based on four years of research, including multiple interviews with former internees, and original documents written at the time by officials involved. One major, top secret, purpose of the camp was to have a pool of people for a prisoner exchange program, to rescue US prisoners of war, diplomats, missionaries, and other important civilians trapped in Japan and Germany during and at the end of the war. The FBI had, beginning when the US entered the war, arrested men it considered "dangerous enemy aliens," sometimes for good reason, sometimes on specious anonymous tips. These men had been in men-only camps. Crystal City reunited them with their wives and children, greatly increasing the available pool for trade. The price of reunion was that both spouses had to sign that they would if required, repatriate to the husband's homeland, with their minor children. The children, and some of the wives, were American born, thus US citizens. No family members knew about the prisoner trade. Life in the camp itself was not intolerable (except for summer heat), conducted under the Geneva Convention, and the head was a humane man particularly sympathetic to children. Internees were well fed, families ate their meals together, and jobs, schools, sports, worship, etc. were available, along with some self-government. Still, they were prisoners, living behind heavily guarded barbed wire fences, with twice daily roll call and strict censorship. Those repatriated, by their choice or the government's, had no idea what they actually faced when they reached either Japan or Germany at war's end. Many Japanese men believed Japan had won the war. This fascinating book follows the experiences of two repatriated families, one German and one Japanese, from the beginning to the end of each family's "story ". Families ultimately released, rather than repatriated, may have lived a different story. This one, however, needed to be told, and feels especially timely.