Re: World War II (fwd)

Jerry Aschermann (ascher@GRIFFON.MWSC.EDU)
Fri, 20 Feb 1998 21:07:48 -0600 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 97 11:46:56 PST
From: Arla Aschermann <
Subject: Re: World War II

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The following comes from my mother and a response to an inquiry I had
regarding the internment of German nationals during WWII [Crystal City,
Texas.  1st generation German immigrants who had been 5 or 6 years old
upon arrival in America were interned as were the more widely known 1st
and 2nd generation Japanese-Americans.  Few people, however, have heard of
the interned Germans]

 Originally she was from Brush, Colorado----north eastern Colorado
that was the setting for the book CENTENNIAL.  Until the 1950's it was a
major site for irrigated sugar beets.  As she implies, Brush had a large
German-American settlement.
-----------------------

Regarding German-Americans being interned during WWII --  Dad
and I can't remember hearing of any, just the Japanese-Americans.
However, the general public wasn't told everything that was
going on.  And southern Colorado did not have a concentration of
Germans.  We do remember German Prisoners of War being sent
to the area,  also Italian POWs -- especially the Italian -- but don't
remember German-Americans.  Maybe some had not taken out
their citizenship papers?  German-Americans did have to be very
careful, however, to not show any allegiance to the old country.
For instance, in Brush was the big German Congregational
Church which many of my school friends belonged to, and of the
services were done partly in German to benefit the grandparents
who had come from the old country (Germans from Russia, who the
rest of the people called "Roosians" for quite awhile).  (I know
about services being done in German, because I visited that
church with a friend of mine a few times when I stayed all night
with her on Saturday night.  Also, their hymnals were in German.)
When World War II came along that church was no longer the
German Congregational, but just Congregational.  That is
interesting to learn that German-Americans were interned in Texas.

>
> ...thing of it is the Germans were good citizens who accepted their fate
> and did not complain to the federal government.
>
> +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>