Taking "The Train to Crystal City" : A Story of Courage, Betrayal and the Triumph of the Human Will

Last January, I got the opportunity to review one of those rare books which takes the reader by surprise by its depth into the nature of humanity. The book, "The Train to Crystal City" by Jan Jarboe Russell, is the rarely told story of community, uprooted by war, fear, and anger; stripped of nearly everything and held captive behind barbed wire and watchtowers and ultimately used as pawns by a government they trusted in as told from the prespective of two American-born teenage girls; one of Japanesse ancestry and the other of German. Their stories are made even more tragic by the fact that these were ordinary Americans, differing only in national origin or race, but otherwise little different from you and I.

Like any American family found in every city, town, or wide spot on a country road, they had their own family traditions and beliefs. They shared the desire for a new and better life for themselves and their children. They believed strongly in a strong work ethic, in family and community, and most of all, in freedom. What happened to these family was a national tragedy, but also a warning that such things have happened here and may happen again.

The publication of "The Train to Crystal City" was a literary success. It was listed in the New York Times' "The Top Books of 2015" and the New York Post's "2015 Favorates". I would like to think that my pre-publication review of the book, which I am re-posting below, aided in some small way to its success, but the credit belongs entirely to Ms. Russell's ability to bring the stories of these remarkable individuals to life in such a way that even with the passing of some 70 odd years we can easily relate to them as if they were one of our own. With that, I am pleased to say that "The Train to Crystal City" has been released in paperback. If you haven't had the opportunity to read this book, I urge you to do so now. It may just open your eyes.

A Another Opinion Book Review:
"The Train to Crystal City"
by Jan Jarboe Russell


World War II, like all wars, encompassed more than just military successes or defeats or the rise and fall of an ideology. Wars impact every aspect of human existence, thus it comes down to the individual and how their lives are impacted in ways where they had little, or more often than not, no choices. So what becomes of those who trusted their country to protect them and instead, betrayed them? What about governments who selectively disregard individual rights out of fears---perhaps real; perhaps not? How does one cope with suddenly being stripped of their job; their school; the friends and loved one and imprisoned for an undefined crime? We've come to expect this of a dictatorship, but what about America?

I had the opportunity to recently review "The Train to Crystal City" by Jan Jarboe Russell. This is the story of just a few of the thousands of lives that, through war, became intertwined in ways that are scarcely imaginable today. These ordinary individuals found themselves thrust upon a world stage, not as bit players, but as set pieces to be used and discarded by events far greater than any of them could comprehend at the time. This is the story of what happens to the American Dream when fear and prejudice are allowed to engulf a nation's soul.

Most of us are familiar with the stories of internment camps which housed Japanese-Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but most of us don't know about the Germans and Italians, some of whom having been nationalized and living ordinary lives for years, who were also interned after being stripped of their citizenship. Fewer yet know that many of those imprisoned included their American born spouses and children or that they included individuals, mostly businessmen, kidnapped along with their families by the US Government from various Latin American countries such as Peru or Mexico, and then brought to America illegally, to be held as essentially bargaining chips along with the rest of the internees.

The internment camp in Crystal City Texas was a one of a kind facility designed to hold families and serve to facilitate a secret prisoner exchange program created by President Roosevelt. Its internees would be exchanged, sometimes involuntarily, along with their families and sent to Germany for key personnel, such as downed US pilots or prominent businessmen held by the enemy, and later in the war, for American or non-aligned Jewish nationals held in concentration camps. Then there was those Japanese-Americans who just wanted to go home---not to Tokyo or Yokohama---but to Los Angeles, San Francisco or perhaps Lima and return to their lives before the war who instead found themselves on liberty ships sailing to a devastated and defeated Japan; a Japan their parents did not recognize. As wonderfully told by Ms. Russell, many of the children, who were American born, didn't speak the language of their parent nor understand the culture. In countries where thousands were fleeing and millions were trying to rebuild their lives, these former Americans or Latin Americans were trying to find their way amid rubble, despair, and suspicion.

Then, of course, there were those who benefited from secret exchange like a former baseball pitcher and pilot who was shot down over Germany and lost a leg, exchanged for an internee and found a new life back home in America, or a Jewish girl, who had been interned in the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp along with her family, and managed to obtain a forged passport from Ecuador, exchanged for an denationalized German and his family at the last minute, but then left stranded in Algiers awaiting changes in a government policy that would allow her to complete her journey, while her family remained stuck in a Swiss hospital thousands of miles away.

These stories are as compelling as they are compassionately told through Ms Russell with each turn of the page; many of their stories having never been told until now. Thanks to Ms. Russell, we can relive their memories with them; their fears; their anger; their sense of betrayal; and their sense of aloneness and shame as their time behind barbed wire and watch towers slowly changed from days into months, and then into years, and ultimately the bitterness that they faced when they were forced to leave the country they loved so much and return to a world they barely remembered or knew at all. Some would adjust. Some would be broken, but all would carry the weight of their internment.

In the end, "The Train to Crystal City" is a story that every American needs to know. As hard as it is for us to believe some 70 years on, this is a story of people as real as you or I who had to suffer the indignity of imprisonment and loss of nearly everything they held dear for nothing more than being born in a foreign land or looking different. Finally, it's the story of perseverance; of family and the human spirit's ability to overcome hardships. It's also a warning. If it happened once before, could it happen again, and if so, who will its victims be this time?

The Train to Crystal City: A Another Opinion Book Review

A Another Opinion Book Review:
"The Train to Crystal City"
by Jan Jarboe Russell

World War II, like all wars, encompassed more than just military successes or defeats or the rise and fall of an ideology. Wars impact every aspect of human existence, thus it comes down to the individual and how their lives are impacted in ways where they had little, or more often than not, no choices. So what becomes of those who trusted their country to protect them and instead, betrayed them? What about governments who selectively disregard individual rights out of fears---perhaps real; perhaps not? How does one cope with suddenly being stripped of their job; their school; the friends and loved one and imprisoned for an undefined crime? We've come to expect this of a dictatorship, but what about America?

I had the opportunity to recently review "The Train to Crystal City" by Jan Jarboe Russell. This is the story of just a few of the thousands of lives that, through war, became intertwined in ways that are scarcely imaginable today. These ordinary individuals found themselves thrust upon a world stage, not as bit players, but as set pieces to be used and discarded by events far greater than any of them could comprehend at the time. This is the story of what happens to the American Dream when fear and prejudice are allowed to engulf a nation's soul.

Most of us are familiar with the stories of internment camps which housed Japanese-Americans following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, but most of us don't know about the Germans and Italians, some of whom having been nationalized and living ordinary lives for years, who were also interned after being stripped of their citizenship. Fewer yet know that many of those imprisoned included their American born spouses and children or that they included individuals, mostly businessmen, kidnapped along with their families by the US Government from various Latin American countries such as Peru or Mexico, and then brought to America illegally, to be held as essentially bargaining chips along with the rest of the internees.

The internment camp in Crystal City Texas was a one of a kind facility designed to hold families and serve to facilitate a secret prisoner exchange program created by President Roosevelt. Its internees would be exchanged, sometimes involuntarily, along with their families and sent to Germany for key personnel, such as downed US pilots or prominent businessmen held by the enemy, and later in the war, for American or non-aligned Jewish nationals held in concentration camps. Then there was those Japanese-Americans who just wanted to go home---not to Tokyo or Yokohama---but to Los Angeles, San Francisco or perhaps Lima and return to their lives before the war who instead found themselves on liberty ships sailing to a devastated and defeated Japan; a Japan their parents did not recognize. As wonderfully told by Ms. Russell, many of the children, who were American born, didn't speak the language of their parent nor understand the culture. In countries where thousands were fleeing and millions were trying to rebuild their lives, these former Americans or Latin Americans were trying to find their way amid rubble, despair, and suspicion.

Then, of course, there were those who benefited from secret exchange like a former baseball pitcher and pilot who was shot down over Germany and lost a leg, exchanged for an internee and found a new life back home in America, or a Jewish girl, who had been interned in the notorious Bergen-Belsen concentration camp along with her family, and managed to obtain a forged passport from Ecuador, exchanged for an denationalized German and his family at the last minute, but then left stranded in Algiers awaiting changes in a government policy that would allow her to complete her journey, while her family remained stuck in a Swiss hospital thousands of miles away.

These stories are as compelling as they are compassionately told through Ms Russell with each turn of the page; many of their stories having never been told until now. Thanks to Ms. Russell, we can relive their memories with them; their fears; their anger; their sense of betrayal; and their sense of aloneness and shame as their time behind barbed wire and watch towers slowly changed from days into months, and then into years, and ultimately the bitterness that they faced when they were forced to leave the country they loved so much and return to a world they barely remembered or knew at all. Some would adjust. Some would be broken, but all would carry the weight of their internment.

In the end, "The Train to Crystal City" is a story that every American needs to know. As hard as it is for us to believe some 70 years on, this is a story of people as real as you or I who had to suffer the indignity of imprisonment and loss of nearly everything they held dear for nothing more than being born in a foreign land or looking different. Finally, it's the story of perseverance; of family and the human spirit's ability to overcome hardships. It's also a warning. If it happened once before, could it happen again, and if so, who will its victims be this time?

"The Train to Crystal City" by Jan Jarboe Russell is a must read for anyone interested in American history, FDR, Truman, Eisenhower, German, Japanese, or Italian history, WWII history, Constitutional law, philosophy, human or civil rights or civics. I could easily see this book in every high school or college library.

What's in a Name?

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell just a sweet”, or so said William Shakespeare in his play, Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, 1-2). I thought I’d have a little fun with this edition of A/O, and answer a couple of the most often asked questions I get, “how do you pronounce your name” and “what is your name’s origin”. Well, I have to admit, it’s a rather unusual name. In fact, there are only about 140 or so of us in North America. So, I guess the best place to start, as they say, is at the beginning, with a little history.

In the 1600's, the family appeared at Gravenhage (The Hague), Amsterdam, and Liden in the Netherlands. There is some indication they came France to Walloon/Belgium as Huguenots. Most were converting to the “New German Church” or the "Reform Church". Various spellings in the records included Hosiea, Hossea, Hoesse, Hose', Hoose, and Hossee. The family were mainly religious themed artisans and craftsmen and maybe have been active in the religious community. In 1680/90, Clement Hosse was invited by the Protestant Duke of Berg, to Solingen Germany (Clement's brother August Hosse, went to Halle, and became the Artisan-in Residence at Martin Luther’s Halle-Wittenberg University while Johann went to the Court at Magdeburg as a teacher). The duke was at odds with his Catholic brother, the Archbishop of Cologne, who was sponsoring Catholic artisans and craftsmen and we wanted to start a community of non-Catholic artisans.

The family was given a large tract of land in Hohenschild, just outside of the mostly Catholic Solingen, located in Westphalia, Germany, which formerly belonged to the Abby of Altenburg. The property was promptly renamed “Hof des Hosse” (this also enabled the family to avoid paying "pew taxes" which everyone did regardless of their religion). The family became premier artisans to the Lutheran Church and Protestant nobility throughout Northern Europe. By 1771, they created a community of artisans and craftsmen, and Hof des Hosse was renamed “Hossenhaus” (House of Hosse), which remained a family owned hamlet or village for independent artisans until 1921, when it merged with Solingen. Several of the houses remain (though some were damaged or destroyed by Allied bombing during WWII). Our family has been honored by the City of Solingen with a street called “Hossenhauser Strasse” (there is also a street named after the family in Magdeburg and August Hosse has been honored by the University of Halle). Most of the family today remain active in the arts and is still quite renown for their craftsmanship. Another tradition of the family has been to serve a theologians, ministers or lay ministers.

In Gascony and Aquitaine France, there are Hossegor and LaHosse, where the letter “f” is replaced with an “h” and means a trench, canal, or branch/shoot, also known as a “fosse” which then becomes “hosse”, although the “h” isn't pronounced. In Normandy France there is Hosseia, which was founded in the 10th Century, which mean a "holly grove". In Walloon (modern Belgium/Holland) the name appears to be a variant for Joseph and in common language means "to add". In Germany, "hasse" means “hatred". There are some other locations which has "Hosse" as part of its name, none are related. However, for the sake of research, there is Hosseia in Normandy, near Roen. The name supposedly comes from a French Norman word meaning "thistle-like" or "prickly" grove. The community today is known as La Houssaye in the Department Seine-et-Marne. The Norman family of Hussey and DeHosse or DeHose originated from there. There is a small tourist community, Hossegor, located on a small inlet on the French coast in the Aquitaine Department. There is also a very small farming community in the French Department of Pyrenees-Atlantiques. In both cases, the name derives from the word "fosse" where the local Gascony dialect changes the "f" to an "h". Either way, it means a trench, pit, abyss, or even a branch or shoot. In the Galilee portion of Israel, there is another small farming community named "Hossen" which means "strength". Chossen or chosse, by the way, in Yiddish, means a "bridegroom", while "Hossah" means a "seer". In Buddhism, a "Hosse" is some who teaches about dharma. In Islam, "Hosse" is often spelled "Hosseini" and comes from the name of Mohammad's grandson, Husain ibn Ali.

The name, in German is properly pronounced “Hoss-er” with a soft “r” or “Hoss-uh” as in the German words “bitte” or “danke”. For more formal matters, our family used the ennobled “n” as in Hossen since they were part of the landed gentry or Herrschaft of the time. On occasion, you would see in various documentation “des Hossen” or say, “Karl Wilhelm Hosse des Hossenhaus” ("des" means "of the"). During WWI, anti-German fever ran high in Great Britain and the United States. Folks were beaten and jailed for anything that remotely appeared German, and our family was very associated with the German community of Nashville, Tennessee (having founded the First Lutheran Church, brought over the first Evangelical Lutheran minister, co-founding the German-American Club and Oktoberfest in Nashville). Many families changed the spelling of their names or the pronunciation (Lord Battenberg became Lord Mountbatten for instance, and many a Schmidt became Smith and a Zimmerman a Carpenter), and ours was no exception.

Part of the family, including mine, began putting the emphasis of the “e”, which then became “Hoss-see”, while one branch wanted to sound more Southern, and changed the emphasis on the “o” and the “e”, so it became “Hose-see”. After the war, a few of the families gradually began to revert back to the former spelling and pronunciation. That is, until a little event called World War II came along. After that, few changed back.

Today, many folksin America have become more aware of their heritage. Many have either reverted to their original spellings or pronunciation, or have adopted names which reflect their ancestry. Suddenly, it’s become cool to have an ethnic sounding name, especially given the influx of minorities from Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as Mexico, Cuba, and Central and South America. Of course, I am forever amazed at the horrible butchering the five simple little letters of my name has to endure. I hear, on a regular basis such pronunciation as “Hoss”, “Jose”, “Hoos”, “Huss”, “Hose”, “House”, and my personal favorite, “Horse”. Amazing isn’t it?

Perhaps this says as much about our ethnic isolationism as anything. Still, I am proud of my European heritage, which extends to other lines too. I have often thought about using the correct pronunciation out of respect for my forefathers (any thoughts?). However, I do not in any way consider myself to be a “hyphenated American” to use the phrase of one of my political heroes, Teddy Roosevelt. Like TR, I believe we owe a loyalty to America. It doesn’t matter how or when we arrived, or if we became citizens by virtue of birth or naturalization. We are first and foremost, Americans. This is not to say, “My country right or wrong”, but rather, it’s our country and as citizens, we have the right to discuss and debate freely and openly without fear and to collectively guide our nation in the right direction.