Enemy Aliens During WW2

[AmateisGal]

My next article for AMERICA IN WW2 magazine focuses on the internment of the German-Americans and Italian-Americans during WW2. I'm sure nearly all of us know about the shameful round-up and subsequent internment of Japanese-Americans during the war. But I don't think nearly as many know about the German-American/Italian-American experience.

My question to you is, did you know about the German-American/Italian-American internment or is this the first you've heard of it?

Anyone remember their relatives talking about the internments?

 

[Touchofevil]

Catchy title!
And surprisingly, I have not heard about said internment.
My girlfriend's adoptive mother and family spent part of their
childhood in a Japanese internment camp. Strangely, they
do not have many bad memories of their "imprisonment," but that might
be attributed to their young ages during the internment.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I did know about it, but only because I made a point of finding out about it -- while the Japanese-American exclusion order was given much space in the history books when I was in high school, there was nothing whatever said about either the German-American or Italian-American camps, creating the impression that the entire program was motivated by racism and nothing else. Good for you for telling the rest of the story.

One of the more interesting little stories in connection with these exclusion orders is that affected persons were not allowed to own shortwave radios, for fear they could use them to communicate with enemy agents. Even those who weren't taken into formal custody were required to turn in their radios to repairmen, who were required to disable the shortwave coils. Radios still turn up today bearing the evidence of this order.

 

[AmateisGal]

Actually, during my research, I discovered that at Crystal City camp in Texas, all three (German-, Italian-, and Japanese-Americans) were interned together.

 

[AmateisGal]

I did know about it, but only because I made a point of finding out about it -- while the Japanese-American exclusion order was given much space in the history books when I was in high school, there was nothing whatever said about either the German-American or Italian-American camps, creating the impression that the entire program was motivated by racism and nothing else. Good for you for telling the rest of the story.

One of the more interesting little stories in connection with these exclusion orders is that affected persons were not allowed to own shortwave radios, for fear they could use them to communicate with enemy agents. Even those who weren't taken into formal custody were required to turn in their radios to repairmen, who were required to disable the shortwave coils. Radios still turn up today bearing the evidence of this order.

My great-grandfather (100% Italian who never became a citizen - perhaps because of his WW2 experience?) had his short-wave radio confiscated, too. I know they still had relatives back in Italy at the time, but what damage an Italian farmer in western Nebraska could do to the war effort is beyond me. lol

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

I did know about it, but only because I made a point of finding out about it -- while the Japanese-American exclusion order was given much space in the history books when I was in high school, there was nothing whatever said about either the German-American or Italian-American camps, creating the impression that the entire program was motivated by racism and nothing else.

When I was in high school that took up practically the entire section on WWII in our US history textbook.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One significant reason for the radio confiscations that isn't often mentioned is the fact that two of the most prominent propaganda broadcasters on the Nazi shortwave service during the early forties were traitorous German-Americans who had defected to der Vaterland to spout Goebbels' slime. Fred Kaltenbach, a high-school teacher from Iowa, broadcast as "Lord Hee Haw," the American answer to Haw-Haw, and a former Hunter College professor named Otto Koischwitz was "Mr. OK." (Koischwitz's lover, shamefully a Maine girl named Mildred Gillars, would become the best-known "Axis Sally.")

With these American voices on the air making every effort to recruit other German-Americans to the cause, and with the Berlin radio having a strong listenership among German-Americans, it was felt prudent to cut off that potential source of propaganda. It was a move of dubious constitutionality, but it also made perfect sense in the context of the moment.

 

[Aerojoe]

I guess an Italian-American had to be a real suspect to end up interned. Italian-Americans collaborated intensively with the FBI during WWII. Mobsters like Luciano helped to take Sicilia and unblocked NY docks. And many of them joined the US army. One of the US top aces during WWII was Capt Gentile, Italian-American too.

 

[fashion frank]

My next article for AMERICA IN WW2 magazine focuses on the internment of the German-Americans and Italian-Americans during WW2. I'm sure nearly all of us know about the shameful round-up and subsequent internment of Japanese-Americans during the war. But I don't think nearly as many know about the German-American/Italian-American experience.

My question to you is, did you know about the German-American/Italian-American internment or is this the first you've heard of it?

Anyone remember their relatives talking about the internments?

I knew about the Japanese being rounded up and all, but I never knew about the Germans or Italians having that happen to them , I always assumed that they were in fact not rounded up because " they looked like us" where as the Japanese dont and I just thought it was racist plain ans simple , very interesting indeed !

All the Best , Fashion Frank

 

[LocktownDog]

I thought this thread was going to be about sci-fi pulp.

My grandfather said he didn't really hear much about it until during his service. He snuck into the Merchant Marines at 16 and served in the Pacific theater. He lived in New Jersey then and said there weren't many Japanese or German immigrants living there at the time. I never asked about the Italian population, which would have certainly been higher. He said after he moved to California in the mid-60s, there was still an underlining fear of the Japanese in Sacramento. Very quiet but like a nervous suspicion among his peers. He didn't really understand why. Still doesn't.

 

[sheeplady]

I heard this from my mother who apparently heard it from my father's parents stories. My paternal grandparents were of German ancestry (long since assimilated since their grandparents immigrated almost a hundred years before) and lived in a mostly Italian-American town that also had a strong German heritage. I'm not sure if they knew anyone personally who was interned (and they both passed away over 30 years ago) but they were well aware that it happened during the war through the grapevine. I really doubt anyone was interned from their community, being a small rural town.

While my grandparents were certainly Americans, they had a really strong German heritage and connection to the German American community. Living outside a town that had so many Italian Americans also meant they knew what happened within that community as well.

There was apparently also violence and harassment against both Italian and German American families, with my grandparent's town being a local target because of the high numbers of people with that ancestry- both newer and older immigrants. My grandparents never experienced any of it living outside of town (and not being recent immigrants), but there were broken windows, verbal harassment, etc. mostly by out-of-towners who came into town to mess with people, particularly businesses.

 

[sheeplady]

I knew about the Japanese being rounded up and all, but I never knew about the Germans or Italians having that happen to them , I always assumed that they were in fact not rounded up because " they looked like us" where as the Japanese dont and I just thought it was racist plain ans simple , very interesting indeed !

All the Best , Fashion Frank

Well, I think declaring something as racist or not based purely on the color of someone's skin and our current view of racism isn't really accurate. In the U.S. we have a moving target known as race- at various time some very white looking people weren't considered white- Italians, Irish, and Jewish individuals (as well as tons of other ethnic groups) who faced downright racism and weren't thought of as white- they were thought of strongly as others.

It still happens today. In a city near where I grew up they have a large and growing population of Bosnian immigrants. Plenty of people don't see the Bosnians as white, no more than previous generations saw Italians as white. They instead are "Bosnian" rather than white. They aren't any other race other than being "non-white" Bosnian to these individuals- they aren't really seen as Black or Asian, but they are not seen as white but a separate ethnicity.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Well, I think declaring something as racist or not based purely on the color of someone's skin and our current view of racism isn't really accurate. In the U.S. we have a moving target known as race- at various time some very white looking people weren't considered white- Italians, Irish, and Jewish individuals (as well as tons of other ethnic groups) who faced downright racism and weren't thought of as white- they were thought of strongly as others.

It still happens today. In a city near where I grew up they have a large and growing population of Bosnian immigrants. Plenty of people don't see the Bosnians as white, no more than previous generations saw Italians as white. They instead are "Bosnian" rather than white. They aren't any other race other than being "non-white" Bosnian to these individuals- they aren't really seen as Black or Asian, but they are not seen as white but a separate ethnicity.

If you go back many years what is in fact someone's ethnicity or nationality was often referred to in books, newspapers and magazines as their "race." One would often be described as being of the "Italian race," "Hebrew race," "German race," and even the "American race."

 

[Aristaeus]

My next article for AMERICA IN WW2 magazine focuses on the internment of the German-Americans and Italian-Americans during WW2. I'm sure nearly all of us know about the shameful round-up and subsequent internment of Japanese-Americans during the war. But I don't think nearly as many know about the German-American/Italian-American experience.

My question to you is, did you know about the German-American/Italian-American internment or is this the first you've heard of it?

Anyone remember their relatives talking about the internments?

Have you done much research on the subject? I am under the impression that Japanese Americans were not interned, only relocated, the same being for the German and Italian Americans.
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/show...icans-persecuted-during-WW-II-in-the-US/page2

 

[AmateisGal]

It's not like they bought a bunch of houses for them in a suburban neighborhood and said, "You'll be safer here." They put them in a camp, with barbed wire, with guards, and all the rest of it. That IS internment.

 

[AmateisGal]

Of note: in 1936, well before WW2 started for America, Roosevelt and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover began a secret 5-year plan to compile a list of individuals who "posed a potential security risk to the nation." By 1939, the FBI boasted that it had its eye on "more than ten million persons, including a very large number of individuals of foreign extraction."

 

[LizzieMaine]

An interesting, little-known fact is that Executive Order 9066, which authorized the designation by the Secretary of War of military "exclusion zones" for specific populations remained in effect until 1976. Had it been on the books in September of 2001, we would have likely seen a very similar outcome with a different group of people. Times change, but inflamed passions don't.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Of note: in 1936, well before WW2 started for America, Roosevelt and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover began a secret 5-year plan to compile a list of individuals who "posed a potential security risk to the nation." By 1939, the FBI boasted that it had its eye on "more than ten million persons, including a very large number of individuals of foreign extraction."

It's because of this security dragnet that Hoover strongly opposed the relocation camps -- immediately after Pearl Harbor most of the real security threats were taken into custody by the FBI, and Hoover believed the rest of the Japanese-American population on the West Coast posed no threat at all. It can be strongly argued that the whole relocation program was little more than a political sop thrown in the direction of the California Hearst press.

 

[Guttersnipe]

Have you done much research on the subject? I am under the impression that Japanese Americans were not interned, only relocated, the same being for the German and Italian Americans.
http://www.thefedoralounge.com/show...icans-persecuted-during-WW-II-in-the-US/page2

You're very much under the wrong impression then...

... resident aliens with Japanese citizenship and U.S. citizens of Japanese heritage living on the West Coast were required to relocate to designated locations. Because of the short time they were given to do so, many, many of them were forced in effect to abandon homes, businesses, jobs/careers.

 

[AmateisGal]

You're very much under the wrong impression then...

... resident aliens with Japanese citizenship and U.S. citizens of Japanese heritage living on the West Coast were required to relocate to designated locations. Because of the short time they were given to do so, many, many of them were forced in effect to abandon homes, businesses, jobs/careers.

It's interesting how the media of the time put this - that the "relocation" of the Japanese-Americans was really for their own good, to keep them from being used by Japanese spies.

The Phoenix Gazette said this on June 25, 1942: "The most amazing thing that has happened in the war to date is the completely effective manner in which the federal government has handled the alien problem, particularly the thousands of Japanese in the vital western states...That the Japanese had elaborate plans for sabotage on our West Coast, is undenied, but whatever their plans, they never had an opportunity to put them into effect...The reason for the Japs failure to carry through on their plans, of course, was the speedy manner in which all Japanese, both alien and citizen, were rounded up and evacuated out of the vital military areas. If the Japs should attempt an attack in force on any point along the coast, they would receive no assistance from Japanese residents, for there just aren't any left reminaing anywhere where they could be of assistance."

The use of the word 'evacuation' is key here. If you're evacuated, you're being removed from potential harm - just like people are evacuated in the wake of a hurricane, etc. But being rounded up and forcibly relocated is very different, IMO.