This article appeared in the Belvelle News Democrat
on April 19, 2007.

Vanished Museum bus tells stories of Germans interned by U.S. during World War II

BY ROGER SCHLUETER

At first glance, the stories seem ripped from today's headlines.

"Enemy aliens" seized from their American homes in the middle of the night. Others taken during raids on their schools and job sites. Still more kidnapped overseas by U.S. agents and brought here by force.

None had a lawyer or was charged with, tried for or ever convicted of a war-related crime. Many sat in internment camps for years; others were shipped overseas and traded for prisoners of war.

But if it's "Guantanamo" "Patriot Act" and "war on terror" that's coming to mind, think again. These were the stories of countless German-American civilians interned by the U.S. government during World War II.

It's a little-known story that's slowly coming to light, thanks to the work of TRACES, a non-profit educational organization in St. Paul, Minn. Its mission: to gather, preserve and present the stories of people from the Midwest and Germany-Austria who encountered each other during World War II.

On Monday, it will bring one of its most disturbing exhibits to Belleville when "Vanished: German-American Internment 1941-1948" comes to the Belleville Public Library.

Metro-east residents are encouraged to tour the retrofitted school bus, study the 10 narrative panels and view the NBC "Dateline" documentary and 1945 U.S. government film. They chronicle the experiences of the more than 15,000 German-American civilians who were held at dozens of internment and detention centers (including the St. Louis County Jail) during -- and after -- World War II. The bus will be open from noon to 7 p.m., admission is free and a discussion will follow in the library.

It's not pleasant reading or viewing, but it's a must-see for anyone with a conscience, particularly those worried about what is going on today, says Michael Luick-Thrams, executive director of TRACES and curator of its St. Paul museum.

"German-American internment is one of the least-known subchapters of U.S. World War II, yet, perhaps, it's the most disturbing," he says. "In a land where the rule of law is thought to prevail, thousands of innocent men, women and children were arbitrarily detained, interned and even deported or 'exchanged' by the United States government.

"U.S. citizens as well as 'enemy aliens' were deprived of due process, property and their freedom. Their suffering cannot be justified as no German-American internee was ever convicted of a war-related crime. Unwilling to learn from this tragedy, we easily could repeat it."

That's thereason the Belleville library spent $600 to bring the "bus"eum here, making it the most expensive event it has ever sponsored, said Harriett Zipfel, the library's director.

"We have a very German community here," she said. "This happened to German-Americans. We know it happened to Italian-Americans. We know it happened to Japanese-Americans. Could it not happen to other types of Americans?

"From what I've heard, it's a very moving exhibit," added Zipfel, who said she hopes to make such displays an annual event if this one draws enough interest. "It's not necessarily a happy exhibit, but we just can't focus on the happy sometimes. We have to hear the bad."

Especially when so few people even realize it occurred, Luick-Thrams stressed. That Japanese-Americans were uprooted from their homes and detained in camps seems common knowledge. In 1988 and 1992, Congress even appropriated $1.6 billion so that every surviving Japanese internee would receive $20,000. They also have received an apology and some compensation for property that was confiscated.

There has been no such acknowledgment of or compensation for what German-Americans went through, he said. Some say the Sept. 11 attack and Iraq war have made such talk too sensitive; others say it's because the German-American lobby isn't strong enough. Regardless, it's a fact that rankles most, even those who can understand why it was done at the time.

"I'm not bitter about what my country did to me," Art Jacobs, who now lives in Arizona, said once. As a teenager, he served in two internment camps with his family and was later deported to Germany -- only to return and join the Air Force. "I'm bitter about what they do now. They don't recognize I was locked up."

During World War II, the U.S. government registered 300,000 Germans in America as "enemy aliens" and interned approximately 11,000 German resident aliens and German- Americans. It forcibly brought more than 4,000 Latin American Germans from Central and South America to the United States. It also shipped 2,000 of those 15,000 back to Germany in exchange for German-held U.S. nationals.

It was done under the Alien Enemy Act of 1798, which allows the government to apprehend, intern or otherwise restrict the freedom of "alien enemies" upon declaration of war or actual, attempted or threatened invasion by a foreign nation.

Equally disturbing are stories of German-language newspapers and organizations shutting down when the government confiscated their membership rolls and subscriber lists to make more arrests. And, while technically only enemy aliens could be interned, their family members, including American citizens, often had to join them in the camps when their homes were seized.

Many of the camps were here in the Midwest, including the Good Shepherd convents in Milwaukee, Chicago and Cleveland and detention centers in Kansas City and Detroit. One was on Ellis Island, near the Statue of Liberty.

Even Luick-Thrams acknowledges that there likely were some Nazi sympathizers among the internees. He tells the story of a Herbert Hans Haupt, a would-be saboteur who was nabbed with seven other German agents slipping into the United States to disrupt the war effort. There's also a Milwaukee woman who kept a picture of Hitler in her house and a group of German-American Bunds who met at a place in St. Paul called "Haus Vaterland (House of the Fatherland)."

But the family stories you'll find on the bus likely will leave you wondering how something like this could happen here -- homes raided often on flimsy, uncorroborated evidence, parents and children separated, property confiscated, many sent back to war-torn Germany with their children in exchange for Americans.

Take the story of Max Ebel. As a 17-year-old Boy Scout in Germany in 1937, he was scarred for life fighting off a gang of knife-wielding Hitler Youth and soon escaped to the United States. But he was arrested in September 1942 and bounced from camp to camp for 18 months -- before being drafted. His "crime"? While willing to fight in the Pacific, he once said he preferred not to fight in Germany because of family there. He also apparently once complimented Hitler's highway system.

Then, there's Walter Greis, an American from Milwaukee. While he fought for the United States in World War II, his two American brothers, German parents and German-born brother sat in internment camps -- and continued to do so for two years after the war ended.

And, here's one of the most astounding of all: Eddie Friede was born to Jewish parents in Hamburg. He practiced law until forbidden to do so by the Nazis, but before he could escape the country, he was imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp outside Berlin. Still, he had friends who were able to secure his release, allowing him to flee to the United States with his wife,

Unfortunately, his troubles were only beginning. He wound up in San Francisco, delivering Viennese pastries door-to-door in his German neighborhood. But these "close connections" proved suspicious to the FBI, who arrested him the day after Pearl Harbor was attacked. The man who had escape barbed wire in Germany found himself behind it again at Fort Lincoln in North Dakota, where he would remain for six months.

Luick-Thrams hopes these stories and the accompanying films will force people to ask themselves tough questions as the United States continues to fight its "war on terror": Are ethnic background or ideology reason enough for internment? Do we owe due process only to citizens or to legal noncitizen residents as well? Is internment effective?

"It also," Luick-Thrams said, "begs the question: Why did no one demand that justice prevail and that innocent people live free?"

For more information on TRACES, including a cybertour of its museum, go to www.traces.org. Contact reporter Roger Schlueter at 239-2465 or rschlueter@bnd.com

Who: TRACES, a St. Paul, Minn.-based group that preserves and presents stories of Midwesterners and Germans who encountered each other during World War II.What: BUS-eum 2, "Vanished: German-American Civilian Internment, 1941-1948."When: Noon to 7 p.m. Monday. A community discussion will follow for those interested from 7 to 8 p.m. in the library's multipurpose room.Where: Belleville Public Library, 121 E. Washington St.Admission: Free.

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