Chet and the Prisoners - 10

Chet

April 5

Here it is nearly Easter. We don't do anything much special, other than lots of church services. Kathleen doesn't like that much, and I miss out on most because of my work, but Ann does the whole bunch. Kathleen has two weeks off school and is restless with so much spare time to fill. I bought a card to give to Toyo, something I would not normally do, but he sent us one. Kathleen and Ann are going to make some brownies for him to say thank you for the oranges.

The weather is settling down a bit now, which is so good. I must start thinking about planting my victory garden again. My plot is about a block away, so quite convenient. I asked my friends from Ft. Lincoln if they would like some seeds. I always save some from the year before,so I don't have to buy many seeds, and I have much more than I will need. Kurt is very keen on the idea, and Toyo is thinking about it. Harry said he would like some too.

I plant things that can be canned and used all year long – such as beans and peas and beets. And I always have loads of flowers. Then we have zucchini, pumpkin, acorn squash, carrots, onions, cucumbers, radishes, lettuce, tomatoes and of course strawberries. I've got the kind that fruit twice during the summer.

When I was talking to Kurt the other day, I found out that he really wants to become an American citizen, and he keeps writing letters to try to make it happen. And he keeps trying to get released, but so far all his trouble has gone for nothing.

His full name is Karl Vogt. and he's 34 years old. He and his family had been living on a farm in Spokane since 1923. He was arrested on Dec. 9, 1941, two days after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Three FBI agents in black suits and hats, got out of a black car. One of them handcuffed him, and the agents went from room to room, looking
through all the family’s photo albums. When Karl’s wife, Elsie, am American citizen, asked the FBI agents where they were taking her husband, she was told that it was “none of your business.”
 

Luckily, on advice from a German friend that had been visiting them a few years previously, they were advised to put the farm in Elsie's name, as if anything started with Germany, no doubt the farm would be taken from them. They visited Germany when they could and sent money back to relatives.

After Karl was picked up and he had a “so-called” hearing, some of the above events were held against him. “Why did your family go back to Germany? Why did you sell the farm to your wife? Why did you take a trip to Germany in 1936? Why did you send money to Hitler?” were some of the questions posed to him over and over. It never occurred to him that the basis for the money question was the money he had sent to a relative.

He told me, “My first night after being picked up by the FBI was spent in the county
jail in Spokane. This was one of the lowest times of my life. It was if I had died and gone to hell. The shock of being uprooted so suddenly for no good reason was still fresh and unreal to me. How long would this go on? What would become of me? And what about Elsie? Would she live through this? Would I ever see my family again? Over and over in my mind I kept seeing the stricken faces of my family. Even little Ursula was not consolable when they took me away - and Armin, that feisty little fellow, was shouting at those F.B.I. men as we left, “You bad men! You bad men!”

“I was held in the county jail until December 21, 1941, when they finally shipped me off here. At Fort Lincoln, on January 19, 1942 I had a “so-called” hearingin Spokane in my absence. I wasn't allowed a lawyer to represent me.   Later on February 3, the hearing was completed in Spokane where witnesses and affidavits could be presented.  Many people testified or sent affidavits in my defense. Later I heard that three people had testified against me. We had land hungry neighbors who couldn’t wait to get their hands on the farm. Of course, they didn’t know that the farm had been turned over to Elsie. The Board chose to listen to the three and ignore the rest.”

“So have you made good friends here in the last few months?” I asked him.

“One of my friends, Erich Braemer, left here in late February. He and I were both from  Spokane and we were arrested on the same day. Erich was a friendly, interesting person whom I liked immediately. He told me that he had a son who was in the U.S. Army Air Corps. One day the head of the camp called Erich to the office and told him he would be going home in a few weeks. Many of us were really excited about this, because we thought there might be some hope for us too. He promised that he would write and tell us why he had been released so soon. He sent news clippings from a Seattle newspaper. These news articles told about his son who had been part of the Doolittle Raid a very dangerous surprise attack on Tokyo. Erich’s son, had been the bombardier on the lead airplane piloted by James Doolittle.  Needless to say it would not do for the father of one of these brave men to be behind barbed wire in an internment camp!”

“And what about the rest of you Germans. Any other interesting stories to tell?”

“My other fellow internees are a cosmopolitan bunch. There are lawyers, engineers,
professors, farmers, and sailors. There are a number of Austrian ski champions who happened to be working as instructors at places like Sun Valley and Aspen when the war broke out. There are two Lutheran ministers and several Catholics priests. One priest, Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann, was the head librarian at the Vatican! He was in the U.S. studying our library system. He's one of my best friends.”

So many of these guys have so much to gripe about, and yet, Kurt is really positive.