Multimedia
RESOURCES
VIDEO
John Schmitz Discusses Use of Alien Enemies Act Against Perceived Enemies
John Schmitz, history professor at Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale, Virginia, and author of Enemies Among Us: the Relocation, Internment & Repatriation of German, Italian & Japanese Americans During the Second World War, recently posted a video...
Analyzing Trump’s Plan to Invoke the Alien Enemies Act
On December 10, 2024, the Brennan Center for Justice hosted "Analyzing Trump's Plan to Invoke the Alien Enemies Act," an hour-long discussion about the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, its use in WWII, and its possible use in the Trump administration. Speakers were...
Marilyn Miller, Author, Discusses “Port of No Return,” book about Camp Algiers, LA
Louisiana State University Press hosted a May 2021 discussion of Port of No Return; Enemy Alien Internment in World War II New Orleans with author Marilyn Miller, associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Tulane University.
“History in Five: FDR’s Secret Enemy Exchange Program” video
Simon and Schuster Books posted this video in 2015, with Jan Jarboe Russell, author of The Train to Crystal City, briefly presenting five facts about Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the policy that led to the exchange of thousands of U.S. and Latin American civilians of...
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...
Algiers, Louisiana Alien Detention Station featured in documentary
Published May 24, 2017, "Camp of the Innocents" 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. Produced by Jack Collins, Joe...
2002 Interview with John Schmitz, former internee
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...
2016 Immigration law lecture features author of “The Train to Crystal City”
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...
“Treatment of Latin Americans of Japanese Descent, European Americans, and Jewish Refugees in WWII”-Hearing video
19 March 2009—Committee on the Judiciary - Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law. Video provided by U.S. House of Representatives and posted by House.Resource.Org.
AUDIO
NPR Radio Diaries: U.S. Using Latin Americans as “Bartering Chips” during WWII
On June 29th, 2025, NPR aired a Radio Diaries story called "Inside a U.S. plan to use immigrants in Latin America as WWII bartering chips." Interviewees included Karin Harten Schramm, whose family were brought to the U.S. from Ecuador. Expecting to be exchanged, they...
Analyzing Trump’s Plan to Invoke the Alien Enemies Act
On December 10, 2024, the Brennan Center for Justice hosted "Analyzing Trump's Plan to Invoke the Alien Enemies Act," an hour-long discussion about the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, its use in WWII, and its possible use in the Trump administration. Speakers were...
Recent German Radio Programs about WWII Internment
Two German reporters based in the U.S. recently had new reports about WWII German American internment on German radio. San Francisco-based Christoph Droesser’s report, “Unter Naziverdacht: Deutsche Internierte in den USA im Zweiten Weltkrieg,” was followed by "Angst...
Recent broadcast features John E. Schmitz, author of “Enemies Among Us”
"With Good Reason," Virginia Humanities Radio, aired an hour-long program called "Legacies of World War II" on May 6, 2022. John E. Schmitz, author of Enemies Among Us, was interviewed in one segment about his family's three-year internment in Crystal City, Texas and...
WWII Internment Camp, ‘Camp Algiers’, Louisiana, held Jews, too
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...
Interview with Karen Ebel, President of the German American Internee Coalition
Karen Ebel, President of the German American Internee Coalition and daughter of a former internee, is interviewed by Arndt Peltner of Radio Goethe, on April 16, 2009. Interview
Interview with John Christgau, Author of “Enemies”
John Christgau, the author of Enemies: World War II Alien Internment, is interviewed by Arndt Peltner of Radio Goethe, in November 2009. Interview
Lost Voices of Crystal City
"Lost Voices of Crystal City" from BBC Radio Four by BBC Radio Four. Released: 2004.
PHOTO GALLERIES
2007 Crystal City Reunion
THE SECOND NATIONAL REUNION OF GERMAN AMERICAN WORLD WAR II INTERNEE FAMILIES IN CRYSTAL CITY, TEXAS November 6 -- November 9, 2007 The second reunion of German American World War II internees was held in Crystal City, Texas from November 6 through November 9, 2007....
