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GWA Member Art Jacobs Writes to US Congressman Regarding Access to WWII Internment Documents from the National Archives:
By Art Jacobs, February 3rd 2009.
The Honorable Harry Mitchell
United States House of Representatives
Washington, D.C.
Via fax: (202) 225-3263
Dear Congressman Mitchell:
Re: Access to WWII internment documents from the National Archives.
As a researcher and victim of internment in the United States during World War II, I have made numerous requests for documents from NARA over the past 25 years with measured success. Unless a researcher of internment victims can travel to Maryland to visit the archives in person, access to “German American” internment documents is cumbersome, difficult, expensive and sometimes virtually impossible.
As my Congressional Representative, I would like to request your assistance to help nominate or obtain priority for digitizing all WWII internment documents, not just Japanese American documents. Perhaps you are aware of the following:
1. During the hearings and research period of the U.S. Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC), the CWRIC amassed more than 33,000 documents; in the main, these papers are relative only to the internment of Japanese Americans. Furthermore, these documents have been codified, placed on microfiche and are available in Government repository libraries, such as ArizonaStateUniversity. (See Attachment 1: note 35 microfilm reels that contain more than 33,000 documents).
2. Public Law 100-383, The Civil Liberties Act of 1988, provided for a Civil Liberties Public Education Fund [$5 million], to sponsor research and public education regarding the evacuation, relocation, and internment of United States citizens and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry. No such resources have been made available for the research and public education regarding the evacuation, relocation, and internment of United States citizens and permanent resident aliens of either German or Italian ancestry.
Because the National Archives has digitized tens of thousands of documents pertaining to the internment of Japanese Americans and has made such papers available on line, it would seem logical and rational to complete the digitizing of all internment records.mBy selecting and digitizing only Japanese American internment records history of internment is either intentionally or inadvertently being distorted—obviously researchers will access the digitized records more frequently merely due to ease and cost of access. Currently, researching the internment of Japanese Americans may be done efficiently on line—at no cost to the researcher. This is not so for other victims of WWII internment policy. Documents pertaining to the internment of German Americans and Italian Americans have not been digitized. (Personally, I have made note of this to the National Archives and Records Administration on numerous occasions—without effect.)
Assuming success in influencing NARA to commence with digitizing non Japanese WWII internment documents in the near future, during the interlude I would like to recommend that a NARA archivist be assigned to the German American internee community. This assigned archivist could assist internment victims [who are advanced in age] and their families to access files conveniently and at no charge. However, if such a program is not feasible, then it would seem reasonable that an appointment of a mutually acceptable German American internment representative or researcher could be authorized to obtain documents from an assigned archivist.
This single assigned representative would then make the materials available to the rest of the German American Internee community.
Would you please contact the Acting Archivist of the United States, the Honorable Adrienne Thomas, on behalf of the German American internee community, internment researchers worldwide, and the American public to complete the digitizing of all internment records? After more than 60 years, it is time to make all internment records equally accessible for all ethnic groups and researchers. In an appeal for justice, in a process which has been so unjust, please help the remaining living victims of WWII internment access government records with dignity, ease and no expense before they are dead.
I look forward to hearing from you on this most important matter.
Additional Information from The Freedom of Information of Information Times Here....foitimes.com is the homepage of Arthur D. Jacobs, Major, USAF Retired; Researcher: Internment in the United States during World War II, December 7, 1941 - July 1948.
WWII Violations of German American Civil Liberties by the US Government
Introduction. German Americans are the largest ethnic group in the US. Approximately 60 million Americans claim German ancestry. German American loyalty to America's promise of freedom traces back to the Revolutionary War.
Nevertheless, during World War II, the US government and many Americans viewed German Americans and others of "enemy ancestry" as potentially dangerous, particularly recent immigrants. The Japanese American WWII experience well known. Few, however, know of the European American WWII experience, particularly that of the German Americans.
The government used many interrelated, constitutionally questionable methods to control those of enemy ancestry, including internment, individual and group exclusion from military zones, internee exchanges for Americans held in Germany, deportation, "alien enemy" registration requirements, travel restrictions and property confiscation. The human cost of these civil liberties violations was high. Families were disrupted, reputations destroyed, homes and belongings lost.
Meanwhile, untold numbers of German Americans fought for freedom around the world, including their ancestral homelands. Some were the immediate relatives of those subject to oppressive restrictions on the home front. Pressured by the US, many Latin American governments arrested at least 4,050 German Latin Americans. Most were shipped in dark boat holds to the United States and interned.
At least 2000 Germans, German Americans and Latin Americans were later exchanged for Americans and Latin Americans held in Germany. Some allege that internees were captured to use as exchange bait.....
Art Jacobs has also written The Prison Called Hohenasperg: An American boy betrayed by his Government during World War II: Published by Universal Publishers, Parkland, FL 1999.
This book is listed on the German World Alliance/Deutsche Welt Allianz list of books and a review will appear on this website shortly.
Unknown to most Americans, more than 10,000 Germans and German Americans were interned in the United States during WWII.
This story is about the internment of a young American and his family. He was born in the U.S.A. and the story tells of his perilous path from his home in Brooklyn to internment at Ellis Island, N.Y. and Crystal City, Texas, and imprisonment, after the war, at a place in Germany called Hohenasperg.
When he arrived in Germany in the dead of winter, he was transported to Hohenasperg in a frigid, stench-filled, locked, and heavily guarded, boxcar. Once in Hohenasperg, he was separated from his family and put in a prison cell.
He was only twelve years old!
He was treated like a Nazi by the U.S. Army guards and was told that if he didn't behave he would be killed.
He tried to tell them he was an American, but they just told him to shut up. His fellow inmates included high-ranking officers of the Third Reich who were being held for interrogation and denazification.
The book tells how the author survived this ordeal and many others, and how he fought his way back to his beloved America.
Visit German American Internee Coalition Here or from the link in the left panel.
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From Universal Publishers 
