The Train to Crystal City

The Train to Crystal City: FDR's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II (2015), a history book by American journalist Jan Jarboe Russell, tells the story of the “Crystal City Enemy Detention Facility” in Texas, where German, Japanese, and Italian-born men were interned with their families during World War II.

Russell begins by recounting how she first learned about the Crystal City camp, from a Japanese American professor while she was an undergraduate at the University of Texas. At first, she assumed it was one of the well-known detention camps for adult Japanese American men. Later she learned that many Germans and some Italians were also detained at Crystal City, and not just adult men but whole families. She decided to investigate further.

Soon after the US entered World War II, President Roosevelt ordered the FBI, under director J. Edgar Hoover, to arrest Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants. Although the detainees were arrested on the grounds that they might be working for their country of origin, Roosevelt’s true rationale was to create “a ready source of exchange” for “more important” Americans trapped in Germany or Japan.



The FBI arrested people on arbitrary grounds. Initially, they targeted men who worked in engineering, on the grounds that they might have the skills to conduct sabotage operations. Many German men were arrested for belonging to German clubs, something that was common and, in most cases, indicated no affiliation to the Nazi regime. The FBI also accepted anonymous accusations with little or no investigation.

These men, dubbed “enemy aliens,” were never charged with any seditious activity. They were given a 15-minute hearing before a civilian tribunal, at which they were denied legal representation. Almost all of these hearings resulted in detainment.

In addition to these arrests, the FBI also kidnapped many Japanese Americans, and Roosevelt pressured Latin American governments into surrendering their Japanese populations to American detention. Many of these detainees spoke neither Japanese nor English and had never been to the United States.



The only senior figure who objected to the detainments was First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who compared the FBI’s approach to “Gestapo methods.” Hoover’s response was to wiretap her.

In most cases, “enemy alien” men were arrested suddenly and without explanation, and at first, their families did not know where they were or whether they were alive. Typically, “enemy aliens” were detained at camps where their families could not join them. However, at Crystal City, women and children could join the detained men. Russell interviews former detainees who remember making the long journey, as children, to their new home in the desert.

Crystal City had been built as a migrant labor camp some years before the US entered the war. It was a vast, sprawling site of small, hastily constructed cottages. The detainees were fenced in and observed by armed guards. Every day they were required to attend roll call. The camp would eventually house more than 6,000 people.



The US government invited the International Red Cross to monitor conditions in the camp to ensure they were humane. This was motivated in part by the desire to make sure that American prisoners were not mistreated in Germany and Japan. Each family was given its own quarters. Three meals a day were served in a communal mess hall. When prisoners asked permission to construct a swimming pool, it was granted. High school seniors were given permission for a prom and a graduation ceremony.

Russell explores some of the less obvious challenges of life in the camp. Some of the camp’s German detainees were pro-Nazi, while others were fiercely anti-Nazi or simply pro-American, and tensions flared at regular intervals. Meanwhile, the Japanese detainees could not find any of their customary foodstuffs. Russell tells the story of the camp’s efforts to set up a means of manufacturing tofu.

The civil servant responsible for running the camp was Earl G. Harrison. Concerned about the welfare of the inmates, he appointed as camp director a likable former border control agent named Joseph O’Rourke. O’Rourke was recently divorced and missed his children. He concerned himself deeply with the welfare of the camp’s children, who used to follow him around the dusty paths of Crystal City. O’Rourke was saddened to see “typical American boys and girls develop deep feelings of betrayal by their government.”



The worst of these betrayals was repatriation. To secure the return of “important” Americans overseas, such as diplomats and businessmen, thousands of the camp’s inmates were sent back to Japan and Germany, in many cases including children who had never seen the country of their parents’ birth. Some detainees volunteered for repatriation because conditions in the camp were intolerable to them. Others believed that America’s enemies were winning the war. Many more were deported against their will. When they arrived, they found countries in ruins and bombed-out husks where the places they knew had been.

The camp remained open until 1948, and even after the war was over, the repatriations continued. Russell speaks to Ingrid Eiserloh, born in New York, but sent to Germany where food shortages left her close to starvation.

Nevertheless, Russell ends on a surprisingly upbeat note. Despite—or because of—the hardships of internment, the children who grew up in Crystal City formed lifelong bonds. They hold regular reunions and publish a group newsletter, Crystal City Chatter.