Page 19 of All We Thought We Knew
I wanted to battle things out, make him see I was right, but he remained silent. He stood and moved to the door.
“I’ll be in the barn if your mother needs me.”
I watched him leave the house, fuming that he would simply give up. The unfairness of the situation made me want to scream. Mama refused to seek treatment. Dad wouldn’t make her do it. Mark wouldn’t listen to me and went off to war.
Stubbornness, it seemed, ran through our family like a raging river.
SIX:GUNTHER
ENEMY ALIEN DETENTION FACILITY, ELLIS ISLAND, NEW YORK
JANUARY 1942
Gunther had waited four weeks for this day to arrive.
From the moment he was detained, he knew a terrible mistake had been made. But like the hundreds of other men on Ellis Island, he was forced to wait his turn to appear at a formal hearing, certain everything would be made right if he could simply tell his story.
That day was finally here.
At early morning roll call he was ordered to pack his belongings and report to the building where the hearings were held. With tangible relief, he’d hurried to comply.
Now he stood in a long line of detainees, waiting outside a three-story redbrick-and-limestone building. Despite bright sunshine in the clear sky, a bitter January wind came off the dark water of the harbor, sending salty spray into the air as waves splashedover the seawall of the ferry slip. Men hunched into their coats, not saying much to the person nearest them. Like Gunther, they no doubt silently rehearsed the vital information each hoped to convey to the people who would ultimately decide their future.
A ship’s horn sounded somewhere in the bay, making Gunther wonder if the detention camp was its destination.
Agent Malone was right. The United States declared war on Germany two days after Gunther’s arrest, and detainees had arrived at Ellis Island every day since. Men like him, born in Germany, as well as those from Italy, were rounded up and slapped with the labelenemy alien. Men who’d come to America with the hope of making a life here. Of starting over for some. He wasn’t foolish enough to believe every immigrant came with honorable intentions, but he’d met enough to know the majority simply wanted to live in peace.
Daily he’d watched men called away to attend hearings. None ever came back, leading to speculation as to their fates. Were they released? Shipped back to Germany? Or, according to the latest rumor to sweep the island, they were sent to concentration camps, like those in Germany, in retaliation for what the Nazis were doing to Jews. Although Gunther had not become overly friendly with anyone, preferring to keep to himself, Reinhard, the man who slept on the bunk below Gunther, often shared the day’s gossip.
“Those men over there,” he’d whispered just last night, motioning to a group of five at the far end of the large room that served as a dormitory. “They are Nazi sympathizers. I heard one say ‘heil, Hitler’ and the others raised their hands. Fools, every one of them. We’re doomed if the Americans think we’re all that stupid.”
Although there was uncertainty about what would happen today, Gunther prayed things would go well. He had done nothing wrong and had followed the rules since coming to America. No one could say otherwise. Once the men at the hearing understood this, they would see their error and release him. He might evenbe back in his tiny flat in Queens by nightfall. With a chuckle, he vowed never to complain about his humble home again.
The ship’s horn sounded again, but it was farther away now, its cargo not bound for the island.
Sometime after he’d been arrested, Gunther learned that Japanese detainees were also housed there, although they were held in a different building, supposedly for their own safety. Rumor had it most of them were Japanese Americans, born in the United States, causing some of the men in Gunther’s group to lose all hope of being released.
“If the government is willing to arrest their own citizens, why would they let us go free?” Reinhard bemoaned. He’d come to America with his family after the Great War, but out of respect to his grandfather, he had never applied for citizenship. Now it seemed not even legal residency would have saved him from being detained.
The line moved at a snail’s pace but sometime before noon Gunther was escorted into a sterile room where three men sat behind a long table, cluttered with stacks of files. He was told to sit in the lone straight-backed chair facing them. When asked if he would like an interpreter, he declined.
The man in the center perused a sheet of paper while the other two men looked everywhere but at Gunther. Unease settled on him, but he forced himself to keep his eyes forward. Finally the man laid the paper aside and met Gunther’s nervous gaze.
“State your name and where you were born, please.”
Gunther swallowed. “Gunther Schneider. I was born in Krefeld, Germany.”
A woman tucked in a corner of the room sat at a small table with a typewriter, ostensibly to keep record of what was said. The machine tap-tap-tapped then grew silent as she waited.
“You should know,” the man said, followed by more tap-tap-tapping, “this hearing is being conducted not as a matter of anyrights you believe you are entitled to, but merely in order to permit you to present information on your own behalf.”
Gunther nodded. “I understand.”
Once again, he was asked his reason for coming to America, his date of arrival, and his occupation. He answered each question with honesty, but when it came to providing information about his family, Gunther broke out in a sweat.
“Tell us about your brother, Rolf.”
Because Gunther knew next to nothing about his brother’s exploits over the past four and a half years, he stuck to the facts of their childhood together, explaining the differences between himself and Rolf. They’d never been close, and he needed these men to understand that. “Rolf did not approve of my coming to America.”
