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In Our Midst, a Novel about Internment

Drawing upon a long-suppressed episode in American history, when thousands of German immigrants were rounded up and interned following the attack on Pearl Harbor, In Our Midst follows one family, the Austs, as they struggle to stay together in a new America—one...

Justice Denied: an Historical Sojourn

Wendel, Joe. Bloomington, Indiana: Archway Publishing, 2017. Dr. Joe Wendel writes a wide-ranging history of German and German Americans, focused on providing insights into the two World Wars from the viewpoint of a German American who lived in Austria during WWII....

National Day of Remembrance ceremony

Disturbed that the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC planned a February 2022 three-day commemoration focused solely on Japanese American relocation during WWII, students in Teresa Van Hoy's history classes at St. Mary's University, San Antonio,...

Introducing New Board Member

We are so pleased to announce that Sigrid Banzhaf Toye, PhD, has joined our Board. Sigrid's father, Eugen Banzhaf, was interned for several years during WWII, before being released on parole. She is an educational and behavior therapist in private practice and holds a...

The War Outside

The War Outside. Hesse, Monica. New York, Little, Brown and Co. 2018. New from Monica Hesse, the bestselling and award-winning author of Girl in the Blue Coat--an "important" (New York Times Book Review), "extraordinary" (Booklist, starred review) novel of conviction,...

In Our Midst

In Our Midst. Jensen, Nancy. Dzanc Books 2020. In Our Midst is Nancy Jensen’s powerful follow-up to The Sisters. Jensen’s debut novel was a Kirkus Best Fiction pick of 2011, an Indie Next #1 pick, and an ABA Bestseller for five weeks.Drawing upon a long-suppressed...

“In Our Midst” to be published in April

Dzanc Books is thrilled to announce the forthcoming publication of In Our Midst, Nancy Jensen’s powerful follow-up to The Sisters. Jensen’s debut novel was a Kirkus Best Fiction pick of 2011, an Indie Next #1 pick, and an ABA Bestseller for five weeks. Drawing upon a...

“Innocent Enemies”

de Oliveira Castro, Margret S. Dorrance Publishing Company, Pennsylvania, 2020. Margret S. de Oliveira Castro's book, Innocent Enemies, details the experiences of her father, Friedrich Walter Schlösser, who was jailed in El Salvador, interned in the USA, and deported...

Miscellaneous internee lists

29 Feb 1944 lists of internees being held on that date at East Boston Immigration Station, Boston, Massachusetts; Sharp Park Detention Camp, Sharp Park, California; House of Good Shepherd, Chicago, Illinois; Seattle, Washington; San Pedro Detention Station, San Pedro,...

American Brush-Off, a young adult e-book, now available

American Brush-Off, a young adult e-book by Max Willi Fischer, is now available to readers. Loosely based on the experiences of Eb Fuhr, who was taken from his high school and interned with his family for over two years, "...seventeen-year-old Lud Mueller is an...

TRACES events in Germany

TRACES, a group focussed on the history of German immigrant experiences in the U.S. announces an upcoming program on U.S. WWII internment in Germany. Michael Luick-Thrams, executive director, announces the events below. Press release: It was wartime on the US home...

New Crystal City information posted

Two additional inspection reports on the Crystal City, TX Family Internment Camp, and several lists of internees transferred there during the first days of the camp are now available for viewing. The transfer lists include the first internees in the camp in December...

February 2017 Statement

[pexblogposts pex_attr_title="" pex_attr_cat="283" pex_attr_layout="columns" pex_attr_number="1" pex_attr_columns="2"][/pexblogposts] The German American Internee Coalition formed in 2005 to educate the public about our experiences, after United States officials...

February 1944 M.S. Gripsholm manifest on-line

  On February 15, 1944, the M.S. Gripsholm sailed from the New York harbor to Lisbon, Portugal, with 1,117 civilians of German descent, including children, scheduled to be exchanged for persons held in Germany. Most had been interned in Texas; many were from...

the Harten Family Story

By Gertrud Harten – 1939 to 1948, and Karin Harten Schramm - 2019 My parents were both from Hamburg, Germany. My father, Wolfgang Harten, born in 1907, finished his apprenticeship in an import/export company in 1927. At that time Germany was suffering under the...

WWII exchange voyages remembered

Lars Hemingstam, author and founder of a website about the ships of the Swedish American Line, discusses the exchange voyages during World War 2 between the Allies and Axis Powers using the Swedish American Line's chartered ocean liners Gripsholm and Drottningholm....

Micro-documentaries about internment

As part of a year-long project (2018-19) highlighting the internment and expatriation of German American and Latin Americans during WWII, history students of St. Mary's University, San Antonio, TX,  made a number of small documentary films about internment. With the...

SS “Gripsholm” repatriates reunion Feb. 15, 2019

A reunion for SS Gripsholm repatriates will be held Feb. 15, 2019 at 4:00 PM at Pier F, Jersey City, New Jersey, 1Harborside Place, Jersey City, NJ 07311. Planned by students of St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, who have been studying German American and...

Crystal City, Texas Family Internment Camp map

Crystal City, Texas Family Internment Camp map (2018) annotated by former internee Werner Ulrich—includes plot plans, drawings of building types, and location of work areas, as well as lists of internees held in the camp, births, and deaths. Staff, including teachers...

The Herrmann family story on-line

Michael Murphy contacted us recently, sharing the World War II internment reminiscences of his grandparents, Hans and Ella Herrmann, and giving us a bit of their history. His mother, Barbara, was twelve at the time. Placed in a temporary holding facility in Chicago,...

Ebel Story

Max Ebel, a German Immigrant's Story Max Ebel, a U.S. resident German alien, was interned from September 1942 until June 1944. The reason for his internment was never explained to him. During the time he was interned, he was in five different internment facilities and...

Herrmann Story

“The Hard Way to Become a Citizen” As told to grandson, Michael Murphy The reality of World War II came knocking on the door of the Herrmann’s home in Chicago on August 6, 1942. The United States had declared war in December of the prior year but the impact on certain...

Crystal City Internment Camp mystery

Tommy Dyo recently offered us photographs of Annie Kaiser, Hildegard Voelker, and Betty, women who worked with his father, Ken, in the hospital at the Crystal City, TX Internment Camp. Interned with his father, Tsutomu Dyo, Ken was not a doctor, probably serving as a...

The Diplomat’s Daughter

Tenabe, Karin. Washington Square Press, 2017. Set partially in the Crystal City, Texas Internment Camp, this novel follows the romance of Emi Kato, a Japanese diplomat's daughter, and Christian Lange, a young German from Wisconsin, during their internment and...

New documentary on WWII internment airs

“Camp of the Innocents,” published May 24, 2017 on YouTube, is a documentary film about the Camp Algiers Alien Detention Station in Louisiana (near New Orleans), the Latin American civilians housed there, and the WW II Enemy Alien Control Program. Linked with...

Ellis Island inspection reports on online

Three inspection reports by the International Committee of the Red Cross delegates describe facilities and chronicle life in internment on Ellis Island during 1943-1946. (The last internees, of German ethnicity, were released in 1948.) Although the National Park...

2016 Immigration Law Lecture Series (1 of 3)

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...

2016 Immigration Law Lecture Series (2 of 3)

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...

Lists of Names

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...

“Real People”—another family

Sigrid Banzhaf Toye shares some of her family's experiences during WW II with us. Her father, Eugen, mother, Emmy, and Sigrid were visiting her grandmother in Germany when war broke out. Scrambling to find passage back to the U.S., where her parents were legal...

Banzhaf Story

  My parents Emmy Elfriede and Eugen Banzhaf's lives included two world wars, the severe inflation in Europe during the period between the wars, the depression in the United States, and the isolation and marginalization that came with interment during the second...

“Train to Crystal City” wins award

On April 17, 2016, "The Train To Crystal City", written by Jan Jarboe Russell, won the prize for best non-fiction book of the year at the Texas Institute of Letters banquet. There were 40 entries this year so the competition was steep.

Pilgrims of War: a Love Story

Veno, Carl A. Pilgrims of War: a Love Story. Fedeli Publishing Inc., 2011. (a novel) Beautiful Italian doctor Magdalena Russo is headed to a medical conference when the ship she’s on is seized at the Panama Canal. World War II is raging, and the passengers aboard the...

GAIC On-line

Welcome to the new GAIC website! We've added new material and redesigned the site to make navigation easier. Take a look around, and then feel free to contact us with comments or concerns.    

Alien Enemies Act of 1918

The U.S. Sedition Act 16 May, 1918 United States, Statutes at Large, Washington, D.C., 1918, Vol. XL, pp 553 ff. A portion of the amendment to Section 3 of the Espionage Act of June 15, 1917. The act was subsequently repealed in 1921. SECTION 3. Whoever, when the...

World War II Enemy Aliens Program

World War II Enemy Aliens Program (2009)—National Archives and Records Administration, C-Span Video Library Archivist Lynn Goodsell talks about various aspects of the World War II “enemy alien control” programs and related records available at the National...

Fort Stanton: a German Internment Camp

In 1941, German Merchant seamen from the scuttled luxury liner S.S. Columbus found themselves held in the U.S. America was not yet involved in WWII, and Fort Stanton, New Mexico, was chosen to house the 400 plus sailors. (More information about Fort Stanton)

USAT Cuba, October 1942

USAT Cuba, October 1942, docked in New Orleans, Louisiana (pgs. 5, 6--Note line 2: Leo Friedman; line 5: Eric Joseph; and line 6: Leo Keiles, are listed as Jewish) Download: USAT Cuba_10_1942

Letter to Senator William Langer from a group of Ft. Lincoln internees, Jan 1946—Requests Help to Avoid Forced Repatriation

Letter to Senator William Langer from a group of Ft. Lincoln internees, January 29, 1946—requests help to avoid forced repatriation (provided by an internee family) A petition was also submitted to Congress on January 24, 1947, signed by 156 internees held on Ellis...

Letter: 7 August 1948 W. F. Kelly to A. Vulliet

Kelly to Vulliet Letter 7 August 1948 W. F. Kelly to A. Vulliet, 9 Aug 1948, reprinted in The World War Two Experience, The Internment of German-American, vol. IV, German-Americans in the World Wars, Arthur D. Jacobs and Joseph E. Fallon, eds. (Münich: K. G. Saur,...