About Us
The German American Internee Coalition (“GAIC”) was formed in 2005 by and for German American and Latin American citizens and legal residents who were interned by the United States during World War II. We are former internees, or their families and friends. We come from all walks of life and from countries around the world. We would like you to know our story. GAIC is a nonprofit corporation registered with the New Hampshire Department of Charitable Trusts.
Our Mission Statement & Goals
GAIC is dedicated to making public the little known United States World War II policies that led to internment, repatriation and exchange of civilians of German ethnicity, both in the United States and Latin America.
- We will educate the general public about the U.S. government’s detention and internment of over 11,000 German American and Latin American citizens and residents during World War II.
- We will reach out to former internees, their families and supporters. We will gather their stories, share information, and support their efforts to make their stories known.
- We will seek full U.S. government review and acknowledgment of the civil rights violations endured by the German American and Latin American communities.
- We will work collaboratively with other internee groups who have similar purposes. As we work toward these goals, we also hope that our efforts result in better protection of the civil liberties of future vulnerable ethnic groups.
The German American Internee Coalition formed in 2005 to educate the public about our experiences, after United States officials declared U.S. and Latin American civilians of German background “enemy aliens” during WWII.
Feared collectively because of our German ethnicity, our civil liberties were abused by the U.S. government. Similar indiscriminate presumptions should not be made today. Ethnicity, religion, nationality or appearance is not enough to declare whole groups of people unwelcome in the United States. February 2017
What’s New?
Specter of a Nazi Threat: United States-Columbian Relations, 1939-1945
Friedman, Max Paul. Specter of a Nazi Threat: United States-Columbian Relations, 1939-1945. The Americas (April 2000). On 11 September 1941, U..S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt took to the airwaves to warn his country that “Hitler's advance guards” were readying...
Private Memory, Public Record, and Contested Terrain: Weighing Oral Testimony in the Deportation of Germans from Latin America During World War II
Friedman, Max Paul. “Private Memory, Public Record, and Contested Terrain: Weighing Oral Testimony in the Deportation of Germans from Latin America During World War II,” Oral History Review 27/1 (Winter/Spring 2000). View/Download from SFU.ca View/Download from...
Pawns in a Triangle of Hate
Gardiner, C. Harvey. Pawns in a Triangle of Hate. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1981. A factual account of the Peruvian Japanese interned in America during World War II View/Buy Online
The German Americans and WWII: An Ethnic Experience
Holian, Timothy J. The German Americans and WWII: An Ethnic Experience. Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 1998. The German-Americans and World War II: An Ethnic Experience is a unique study of America's largest ethnic group during one of its most difficult periods....
Ft. Meade guard tower. Image from sketch by German internee Paul Lameyer, courtesy of his grandson, Randy Houser.
History
