The train to Crystal City : FDR's secret prisoner exchange program and America's only family internment camp during World War II / Jan Jarboe Russell.
Material type: TextPublisher: New York : Scribner, [2015]Description: xix, 393 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 1451693664 (hbk. : alk. paper)
- 1451693672 (pbk. : alk. paper)
- 9781451693669 (hbk. : alk. paper)
- 9781451693676 (pbk. : alk. paper)
- Iserloh, Ingrid, 1930-
- Utsusjogawa, Sumi, 1929-
- Crystal City Internment Camp (Crystal City, Tex.) -- Biography
- German Americans -- United States -- History -- 20th century
- Japanese Americans -- History -- 20th century
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Children -- United States -- Biography
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Concentration camps -- Texas -- Crystal City
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Evacuation of civilians -- United States
- World War, 1939-1945 -- Forced repatriation
- Crystal City (Tex.) -- History -- 20th century
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book | Main Library | NonFiction | 940.5317 R964 | Available | 33111007972884 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
The dramatic and never-before-told story of a secret FDR-approved American internment camp in Texas during World War II, where thousands of families--many US citizens--were incarcerated.
From 1942 to 1948, trains delivered thousands of civilians from the United States and Latin America to Crystal City, Texas, a small desert town at the southern tip of Texas. The trains carried Japanese, German, Italian immigrants and their American-born children. The only family internment camp during World War II, Crystal City was the center of a government prisoner exchange program called "quiet passage." During the course of the war, hundreds of prisoners in Crystal City, including their American-born children, were exchanged for other more important Americans--diplomats, businessmen, soldiers, physicians, and missionaries--behind enemy lines in Japan and Germany.
Focusing her story on two American-born teenage girls who were interned, author Jan Jarboe Russell uncovers the details of their years spent in the camp; the struggles of their fathers; their families' subsequent journeys to war-devastated Germany and Japan; and their years-long attempt to survive and return to the United States, transformed from incarcerated enemies to American loyalists. Their stories of day-to-day life at the camp, from the ten-foot high security fence to the armed guards, daily roll call, and censored mail, have never been told.
Combining big-picture World War II history with a little-known event in American history that has long been kept quiet, The Train to Crystal City reveals the war-time hysteria against the Japanese and Germans in America, the secrets of FDR's tactics to rescue high-profile POWs in Germany and Japan, and how the definition of American citizenship changed under the pressure of war.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 363-370) and index.
Without trial. New enemies ; Eleanor vs. Franklin ; Strangers in a small Texas town -- Destination: Crystal City. Internment without trial ; A family reunion ; The hot summer of '43 ; "Be patient" ; To be or not to be an American ; Yes-yes, no-no ; A test of faith ; The birds are crying -- The equation of exchange. Trade bait ; The false passports ; Under fire ; Into Algeria ; The all-American camp ; Shipped to Japan ; Harrison's second act -- The road home. After the war ; Beyond the barbed wire ; The train from Crystal City.
"Focusing on a little-known event in American history that has long been kept quiet, a dramatic account exposes a secret FDR-approved American internment camp in Texas during World War II where hundreds of prisoners were exchanged for other Americans behind enemy lines in Japan and Germany."-- Publisher's description.