John Schmitz, was born in the Bronx, New York, on October 12, 1936 and interned, with his family, in the Crystal City, Texas, Internment Camp between January 1943 and July 1946. He was interviewed at the Institute of Texas Culture, University of Texas San Antonio on November 11, 2002. Mr. Schmitz served in the United States Marine Corp (1959-63) and is […]
On July 15, 1942, the S.S. Drottningholm left Pier F, Jersey City, New Jersey bound for Gothenburg, Sweden, where internees were sent on to Germany and Italy, to be exchanged for U.S. citizens. The German American Internee Coalition recently received a number of documents about this particular voyage, thanks to Shelby and Stephen Concepcion, cousins who found […]
WWNO, a radio station in New Orleans, LA, featured the WWII history of Camp Algiers, across the Mississippi River from New Orleans, in a two part podcast. During the WWII years, this facility served as a receiving and detention station for Latin Americans, including Jews, brought to the U.S. for internment and exchange. Thanks to producer and presenter […]
Are you looking for a loved one you believe was interned in the United States? Thanks to Martin Huwart, with the help of independent researcher Satu Haase-Webb, we now have the 31 Oct 1942 Camp Kenedy census posted on our website. Most of the men held in this detention center were from Latin America. Many of them were […]
October 4, 2016—In the first lecture of a three-part series from the Office of Vince Ryan, Harris County Attorney, and the Harris County Law Library, nationally-recognized immigration law expert, Charles C. Foster, discussed the legal aspects of the immigrants and U.S. citizens detained at Crystal City, Texas, with welcome from Harris County Attorney Vince Ryan […]
October 11, 2016—Former U.S. Ambassador Chase Untermeyer is joined by Special Assistant County Attorney Terence O’Rourke to discuss foreign policy aspects of the immigration issues facing detainees at the Crystal City camp and correlated case studies. This is lecture 2 of 3 in the 2016 Immigration Law Lecture Series from the Harris County Law Library […]
Thanks to Martin Huwart, who contacted GAIC about finding records of his great-uncle, interned in the U.S. from Haiti. He, with the help of independent researcher Satu Haase-Webb, found and shared with us a number of documents and photographs about Camp Kenedy, Texas, one of the two internment camps his great-uncle was in. (Camp Kenedy […]
October 18, 2016—Author Jan Jarboe Russell, whose work “The Train to Crystal City” was selected as the 2016 Gulf Coast Reads featured book, discusses the Enemy Alien Control Program of WW II, the arrests of people from the U.S. and Latin America, the World War II internment camp at Crystal City, Texas, and the prisoner exchanges with […]
Website visitors searching for more information about the U.S. internment programs of WW II will be interested in our numerous lists of internees, especially it they are wondering whether their family members were interned and if so, where. Besides offering help requesting records from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), the German American Internee Coalition collected these lists […]
Yes. In a Feb 1943 letter exchange between Jewish internees being held at Camp Kenedy, Texas and W. Bruppacher, Department of German Interests, Legation of Switzerland, charged with camp inspection and oversight of internees of German ethnicity, they express concerns about finances, censorship, and the difficulties of living “close to our worst enemies.” NARA RG 59, State Dept, Special […]