Page 22 of All We Thought We Knew
“You don’t find it strange that the good doctor received a telegram the day after Japan attacked the United States and is told to get rid of files?” asked the man in the center.
Gunther had to admit the timing was suspicious. “Who is it from?”
“We can’t divulge that information.” He glanced at his colleagues, who nodded to his silent question. When he faced Gunther again, he looked grim. “This hearing is over, Mr. Schneider. It is our belief that you should continue to be held as a potentially dangerous enemy alien. You will remain in the custody of the Department of Justice and be transferred to Camp Forrest in Tennessee.”
He slapped the file closed, banged it with a rubber stamp, and handed it to the man on the end who added it to a tall stack of similar files.
Stunned by the verdict, Gunther was about to protest when the guard, who’d stood near the door throughout the proceedings, came forward. He held a set of handcuffs.
“Stand up and hold out your hands.”
Gunther stared at him.
This couldn’t be happening. What right did they have to further detain him? To send him to a different state? What would happen to his apartment and his belongings? His schoolbooks?
He shot a look at the men at the table but none returned his gaze and busied themselves with more files. More hearings where more men would be detained simply because they’d been born in Germany.
“You cannot do this!” His voice echoed in the stark room. No one, not even the woman at the typewriter, glanced his way. “I am innocent.”
The guard yanked him up by the arm. “Quiet down, mister.” He snapped the handcuffs in place and motioned to Gunther’s small suitcase of belongings. “Get your things and follow me.” He moved toward the door.
Desperation kept Gunther rooted to the floor. “I am not a spy,” he said, speaking more calmly yet with the urgency of a drowning man. The agent in the center finally looked up, indifference on his face. “I came to America to be free from a dangerous government I could not trust. I came with dreams, like millions of immigrants before me—maybe your own ancestors—with the hope of one day calling this country my own. But now I see my trust in America was misplaced. What you are doing to me today, to the others, is shameful.”
The man’s expression hardened. “Mr. Schneider, your country started the war. Your countrymen are killing innocent people by the thousands, with no end in sight. I think you and I have a different definition of whatshamefulmeans.”
He motioned for the guard, then went back to his files, dismissing Gunther with the action.
“Let’s go,” the guard said.
Gunther’s shoulders sagged in defeat. The vision of freedom he’d felt certain of only an hour ago evaporated as he bent to retrieve his suitcase and followed the military man out a door. Cold air stung his face, and Gunther realized his cheeks were damp with tears.
A boat waited in the ferry slip. Gunther boarded and found it full of men like him—handcuffed, cold, with despair etched in the crevices of their faces. Crushing silence permeated the crowded space, speaking louder than words ever could.
When the boat lurched forward sometime later and movedinto the harbor, Gunther presented his back to Lady Liberty. Never again would he gaze upon her and dream of becoming one of her sons. On land, the men were transferred to paddy wagons that took them to the train station. Gunther was herded onto a southbound train headed for Tennessee, uncertain of what awaited him there. Was he going to a prison camp? Or were the fears of his fellow prisoners correct and a concentration camp awaited them?
The young man next to him, perhaps a year or two Gunther’s junior, cried softly into his wool scarf, muttering over and over that he wanted to go home. It was no doubt the sentiment felt by each handcuffed man, forced onto a train that would take them far from loved ones, friends, jobs, dreams.
How long would internment last? Weeks? Months? Years?
As the train pulled from the depot, a devastating truth sucked the air from Gunther’s lungs and nearly overwhelmed him.
He no longer had a home.
Not in Germany.
Not in America.
Not anywhere.
SEVEN:MATTIE
DELANEY HORSE FARM
MAY 1965
“Mark James Taylor, where are my hair rollers? I know you hid them.”
I stood at the top of the stairs, my loud voice echoing throughout the house, something Mama didn’t approve of. But my brother’s joke wasn’t funny. My shoulder-length hair wouldn’tflipon the ends without rollers, and I couldn’t get up in front of the whole town with un-flipped hair.
