The train to Crystal City : FDR's secret prisoner exchange program and America's only family internment camp during World War II

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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, and 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 American 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, 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.

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Summary Note

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, and 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 American 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, 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.

Content Note

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.