Hisao Inouye’s Story While our website is about German American and Latin American residents interned during WW II, we are making an exception to post Hisao Inouye’s memoirs here. He was held in temporary facilities, a military prison, and various Immigration and Naturalization camps, six in all, during his years as an enemy alien. […]
The Welcker Family Story by Rosita Welcker My name is Rosita Welcker. I am German citizen and live in Bogota, Colombia. My father’s name was Friedrich Paul Welcker. He was born in Moenchengladbach, Germany on April 4, 1902. He moved to South America in 1931 and first lived in Caracas, Venezuela. In April 1937 he […]
A brief history of Joachim Rehbock My paternal uncle Joachim F. Rehbock was born in Karlsruhe, Land of Baden-Wuertenberg, Germany on April 7, 1910. He was the third son (my father Arnold was the second) of Theodor Rehbock, professor in Hydraulic Engineering at the University of Karlsruhe. After finishing the High School Gymnasium in the […]
Heidi Gurcke Donald and her family were expelled from their home in San José, Costa Rica and interned in Crystal City, Texas, for fifteen months, before her father was released on parole. A graduate of the University of California in San Francisco, she is a retired public health nurse living in California. She is actively […]
The Grabers, two young boys and their German-born parents, lived in New Jersey in an apartment building owned by a Polish landlord. When Hitler invaded Poland, the relationship became strained, so the Grabers moved. The landlord contacted the FBI. Mr. Graber worked on “war sensitive technology” for the International Nickel Company. The FBI began to […]
Ursula Vogt Potter, a retired educator and Washington State native, is the daughter of a former German internee.
John Christgau, a California resident, is the author of nine books. His novel Spoon won the Society of Midland Authors prize for “Best Fiction.” ENEMIES, this country’s first book on the World War II Alien Enemy Control Program (AECP), was published by the Iowa State University Press in 1983, and republished by the University of […]
Lothar Eiserloh and his family experienced major upheaval with the advent of WW II. His father, Mathias, was arrested the day after the Pearl Harbor bombing. For two years his mother, Johanna, struggled daily to feed, clothe, and house her children, before the family was reunited in the Crystal City, TX Internment Camp. Two years […]
Robyn Ross’s 2014 article for the Texas Observer, “Legacy of Crystal City’s Internment Camps,” discusses the Crystal City, Texas, Family Internment Camp of WW II, which provided much needed work for many Crystal City residents. The article outlines the history of the Enemy Alien Control Program and interviews former internees, as well as discussing the balance between national […]