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H.R. 1185, The Wartime Treatment Study Act
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Visitor Comments
David Simmons
This is long overdue.
Ensila Eiserloh Bennett
Having spent my early childhood years interned with my family Crystal City, Tx Internment camp and being "repatriated" with my family to Germany to suffer through allied bombings and years of post-war deprivations, I strongly favor the passing of this bill. For 50 years I have suffered the indignity of being derided and called a liar even by teachers and professors who denied that German Americans were interned during WWII. I watched my now deceased mother break down in tears when she read of the reparations & apologies offered to our Japanese camp mates, while the dignitaries gave speeches announcing that that "no Germans were interned". While I do not expect that we (German Americans internees) will be offered any reparation for the material and psychological losses our families suffered, it would be of some comfort to see a formal acknowledgement of the shameful injustice done to my parents.
Bernard Lehrer
I have known several who suffered the same hardship as Ensila. There must have been records kept about these injustices.
Margaret Giordani
Let's set the record straight
Klaus L Vietor
I hope this goes beyond a simple apology. Its about time the US faced up to the injustices suffered by my family. Let the truth be told.
Mrs. Diana Foster
As a daughter of an internee, I have seen the dark clouds that have surrounded the members of my family and family friends that were interned. Our history should reflect the reality of who was interned and accept responsiblity for the violation of rights that occurred during that time. American citizenship was not always a consideration and history recorded properly will perhaps be a small deterent to repetition.
Doris Berg Nye
My parents and older sister, of German descent, American citizens, were interned during WWII in Hawaii. They were held at Sand Island and camp Honouliuli Detention Camps along with Japanese, Italian and over 100 German Americans. All internees regardless of ethnicity suffered equally the same outrageous indignities, injustices, the loss of property,and scarring of psyche. On Dec. 8, 1941, my fingers were peeled from a car's window, as my older sister, the last of the adults was driven away by government agents. My little sister and I, age 11 were left behind as screaming, abandoned children. My family completely vanished. Their only crime was to have been born the same ethnicity as an Axis power. For years, no one believed me. Our family had to silenly endure the pain of internment. None of the German Americans, regardless of the months and years of internment was ever charged with anything. We were innocent victims of war time hysteria. A formal acknowledgement is way overdue.
Heidi Gurcke Donald
Prior to WWII my family lived in Costa Rica. In mid-1942 my father and uncle were arrested and jailed, simply for being German-born. After six miserable months in the local penitentiary, they, along with my aunt, cousin, mother, sister, and me, were deported to the United States for internment. We lost everything: our homes, our livelihood, our possessions, and our freedom. And we were only one small family group out of the more than 4000 civilians of German ethnicity who were forcibly expelled from Latin America at U.S. bidding.
In light of current events and our concerns about security, examining not only the intentions of these World War II programs, but also their results and their consequences, would prove informing. I think the commission this bill would create, if enacted, will find that holding people presumed dangerous because of their ethnicity—for indefinite periods of time without allowing legal recourse—is both ineffective and inhumane.
Ursula Vogt Potter
I am the daughter of a former internee. My father, Karl Vogt, was "arrested" on Dec. 9, 1941, and released ("paroled") in Aug. of 1943.
My mother, Elsie, brother, Armin, and I were all born in the U.S., but we were also treated as enemies.
None of us, including my father, ever did anything to warrant such treatment.
Although my father died in 1974, my mother, who is 95, and my brother and I, along with thousands of others like us, need answers from our government as to why this happened. This part of our World War II history has been "swept under the rug" for far too long!
John Bennett
The facts should come out, if for no other reason than so todays children will know the truth. Truth is always one of the first casualties in any war but it's time the truth be known.
Gunther Graber
The passing of this bill is long overdue, just like admission of the injustices we suffered when my parents, my two brothers and I were interned in 1942. Without a cause, without a trial. The Japanese Americans were no different then the German Americans. This is the time our government owes up to the injustices committed on 11,000 German Americans of which most of them were US citizens.
Robert Gregory
this is new to me, but understandable given our nation's history. I wonder how folks feel about these reparations as opposed to slavery, or the those recieved by the japanese?