The Train to Crystal City

5 of 5 stars

Russell has written a necessary and eye opening work with The Train to Crystal City. While more has become known in recent years about the plight of Japanese and Japanese-American internees in the United States during WW2, Russell uncovers a story which includes Germans, German-Americans and Latin Americans who, along with Japanese and Japanese-Americans, found themselves in the only family internment camp in the country. Faced with the choice of being interned as a family or not being with their spouses, many wives agreed to “voluntary repatriation” to countries their children had never seen and only vaguely knew in exchange for being together as a family. Most of the stories from Crystal City are seen through the eyes of these child internees looking back as adults who felt torn between doing the right thing by their elders and wanting to be US citizens and remain in the country of their birth. This was most clearly evident in the differences between the older Japanese issei and their children the nisei.

Yet unlike other histories of this period, Russell provides balance in trying to understand the motivations of people involved on the government side, including the INS’s Harrison and the likable, if lonely alcoholic, O’Rourke who was charged with running the camp. O’Rourke in particular comes across as a caring man who did all he could to support the children and teenagers in the camp including encouraging attendance at Federal High School that functioned as a regular American high school within the barbed wire, so much as such a thing was possible. He tried to make sure that many young people who were US citizens were given the opportunity to be sent out of the camp to continue their education.

Russell makes it clear that the camp did hold notorious fascists such as the German American Bund’s leader Fritz Kuhn and doesn’t shy away from talking about the pro-fascist rallies held within the camp by some. In fact massive arguments were held between families with regards to allegiances or lack thereof to Japan, Germany and the United States. It is her ability to tell the human story of all involved while recognizing the difficulties and contradictions of the period that makes this such a compelling read.

She also brings to light a little known exchange program that occurred under FDR where prisoners at the Crystal City camp were exchanged with enemy nations for US POWs and other US citizens stuck in Axis countries. This exchange program created an atmosphere which encouraged internment to enable the US government to have enough “prisoners” to trade. This included US citizens, mostly children and spouses of the detained. In addition, the US government kidnapped Japanese and German citizens who were living in Latin America and then arrested them as “illegal” once they were on US soil and used them in the prisoner swaps – all in the name of greater security in the hemisphere.

This program was kept secret during the war. Yet despite the obvious heartache and disruption that it caused for those arrested, here too Russell highlights the plight of a German Jew named Irene who was one of those who was able to come to the US as a result of the exchange after spending years at Bergen-Belsen. As with most events that happened during the unprecedented upheaval that was the Second World War, nothing was ever simple.

Overall Russell does a great service by highlighting these practices and bringing to light the personal and human tragedies that resulted from the unnecessary internment of US citizens and innocent non-citizens while maintaining balance and perspective. The Train to Crystal City a must read for anyone interested in civil liberties, war and the history of the untold stories from the home front of WW2 America.