CHAPTER THREE
Article in the Ironside Broadside on March 7, 1944
POWS ARRIVE AT IRONSIDE LAKE
Yesterday afternoon, the sidewalks of Market Street were crowded with an estimated six hundred onlookers as armed guards marched two hundred forty German prisoners of war to the newly opened Camp Ironside.
The procession was orderly, with the only incident of note being a rotten egg hurled from the watching crowd and hitting one of the prisoners in the shoulder. The culprit was never discovered, though the sheriff questioned a group of high-school students stationed on the corner.
Twenty-two of the guards returned by train to Fort Snelling, but the other twenty army men will remain to be sent out with prison work details, as well as to secure the perimeter of the camp. Major Jeffrey E. Davies, the camp commander, led the procession. A veteran of the Great War and a native of New York City, he was also a pioneer in the field of radio cryptography.
Some of the prisoners were Panzer men in German tank lines, parachuters captured behind lines, or submariners brought to the surface by a depth charge, but now they all look alike. Faded shirts with PW written in dark letters across the back and on the sleeves form their new uniform. Staff from the Algona base camp estimate that only a third of them speak rudimentary English, with a mere dozen considered fluent.
The latter group includes Captain Stefan Werner, the POWs’ spokesman and one of the few commissioned officers at the camp. “Many of these men lived on farms in Germany,” Werner stated. “They are familiar with hard work. Their only desire is to be treated fairly by the community.”
He acknowledged that his own upbringing was as the heir to the largest meat-packing factory in Frankfurt and that he has never grown a potato. This presents no trouble, however, because according to the Geneva Convention, commissioned officers cannot be forced into labor but may remain at the camp during the day while the enlisted men are picked up and trucked to participating sugar beet and potato farms, beginning midspring.
Depending on rank, officers will be paid a salary between twenty and forty dollars per month for doing no work at all, while laboring POWs will be paid the market rate for farm labor, around thirty-five cents per day. All payment is made in coupons to be used at the camp canteen. POWs are not permitted to have actual US currency, as it might be useful in an escape attempt.
Following the procession, Mayor Carl Berglund gave a brief speech of welcome, addressing the service and patriotism of the army guards transferred here from Fort Snelling. He says he hopes that 1944 “will be remembered as a partnership beneficial to everyone involved.”
No reference was made to how the results of the experiment might impact the upcoming fall election, when Berglund will presumably run for a fifth term.
From Peter to Johanna
March 9, 1944
Dear Jo,
By the time you get this, you’ll have a full camp. When you get a chance, let me know how the arrival went, but for goodness’ sake, stop talking about getting kicked out of your job. You might actually like it if you aren’t determined to be miserable.
As for me, I’ve never wanted to give up teaching here, at least once I started. Where would I go? My childhood home in San Francisco is boarded up, probably vandalized, and my family is locked in Arizona till who knows when. I took this job willingly, and I’m keeping it willingly.
Just so you don’t call me perfect or barely human again, here’s something I never told you: I didn’t take this position out of patriotic duty or a love of teaching. No, I signed up to escape an arranged marriage.
Intrigued? Well, I can’t leave all the dramatic revelations to you and fill my letters with nothing but talk of grading and physical training runs.
Don’t think all Japanese Americans still honor the practice of arranged marriages—most don’t—but the Matsuos are very traditional, and they’d been close to my parents since their arrival in America, so it made sense to everyone to pair me off with their only daughter. Aya was younger than me, a sweet, shy girl, and pretty. She always wore two silver heart hair clips and avoided puddles on the sidewalks.
Those are fine things to know, but most important is this: Since she was fourteen years old, she’d had her heart set on a neighbor of ours, Sunao, and we both knew it. It was as obvious as those musicals where the orchestra swells when the hero and heroine meet for the first time. She walked home from school with him every day, smiling like he scattered the stars in the sky just for her.
After I came back from high school in Japan, I’d ring up Aya’s groceries at our family store, and she’d barely even look at me. Not in a blushing, demure sort of way, either. She was afraid of me. Or maybe she feared getting shoved into a life she didn’t choose.
The match might have happened regardless—breaking it would have destroyed her relationship with her family. I couldn’t do that to her, so when I got a call from a former neighbor serving in the army, telling me about the language school, I realized it was the perfect way out for both Aya and me.
Like I said, Aya’s father is a firm believer in the old ways, and my offer to serve with the Military Intelligence Service infuriated him. “A traitor’s move,” he called it, even though, as a civilian, I won’t be sent into active combat. (You’ve probably guessed, but the reaction of Issei to their children’s involvement in the war is mixed, especially after Roosevelt ordered us away from the coast and into internment camps.) Not only did Mr. Matsuo call off the engagement, but he hasn’t spoken to anyone in my family since then.
So that’s how it came about. I’m not teaching for America, but for Aya. She’s now married to Sunao, with a baby on the way, at the same relocation center where my parents, sister, and grandmother are being held. I hope she’s happy.
In the end, I’ve found a purpose in this work that I never would have guessed. After the war, I might help with the Red Cross’s war-relief efforts in Japan. If you study hard enough, you could join me. (I know you’d never do it, but think of this: Suggesting the idea to your parents might make them feel more comfortable with Oxford by comparison.) It’s a beautiful country, and sometimes I miss it.
But here I am, making the best of things. Hope you’re doing the same.
Your friend,
Peter
P.S. Where is my baseball news? I demand a full report.
From Olive Bradshaw to Johanna
March 10, 1944
Dear Johanna,
Every time I shelve books in the Modern Languages section and pass your favourite study table, I’m tempted to sob into my hanky. It doesn’t seem fair that I’ve been dying to go back to London for years, and then you’re sent back to your hometown against your will.
All that to say, I miss you.
I’ve done some digging, like you asked me to, with Smythe (stuffy old fellow, isn’t he?). He wasn’t quite so easy to get information from as the chair of the natural sciences department, but I worked him around to it. I’m afraid he’s not lying; he doesn’t have the foggiest idea who was funding your scholarship, so that’s a dead end. I’ll keep an ear open to the university rumour mill as best I can, though.
Another few weeks before the term ends and I’m exiled to Uncle James’s home again. Did I tell you Charlie’s got it in his head that he wants to stay here after the war and be a farmer, of all things? I very nearly fainted when he told me. Before the Blitz, this was supposed to be a few months’ holiday to give Mum time to focus on her work at the hospital. And yet, here I am.
I comfort myself with daydreams of the two of us in jolly old England as soon as that rotter Adolf signs the surrender documents. Though of course I’ll have to be the one to make the drive to Oxford for visits, since you’ll be so immersed in your books that it will fall to me to pull you away for trivialities like a social life.
Did I mention my older brother is quite dashing? And that I want to introduce the two of you once the Royal Navy finally lets him go? Except do try not to start off with talk of dead languages or dead Greek poets or books in which everyone dies. Morbid is only charming in select circles.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. For an update on the here and now, here’s the latest from campus. It takes much longer to write it all out than to say it, so I’ll abbreviate, and I’m sure you’ll know who I’m talking about: KL jilted BR and asked some fresher to the movies a week later; FS quit the basketball team and no one knows why; HR took first-chair violin from RD, and now they’re not speaking to one another.
There, that should satisfy you for a while; I need to read for chemistry. I don’t think I’ve ever written so many words in a row. Three full pages! You ought to frame them.
All the best,
Olive
From Johanna to Peter
March 11, 1944
German Idiom of the Day: Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof. Literally, “I only understand train station,” meaning barely anything the person said is comprehensible.
Context: I translated as the camp doctor—sorry, the “post surgeon.” Really, the jargon they insist on around here—described the scientific details of frostbite to shame a POW into wearing gloves while working outside. He nodded along the whole time, then, once the doctor had gone, grinned and said this.
Dear Peter,
Camp Ironside has gone from ghost town to boomtown overnight. You were right—the men wasted no time on making the camp livable. Based on their prewar occupations, they were assigned to crews, each led by an expert: a construction foreman, a welder, several carpenters, and so on. Those who had no relevant skills hauled supplies and cleared rocks from the road.
In another several weeks, all will be quiet during daylight hours once most of the men begin work on the farms, but today it was all hands on deck. It’s been difficult to focus on the paperwork Major Davies gives me, but almost every day he runs short of administrative tasks and sends me out to walk among the men, asking for any needs or concerns. Don’t worry—I’m always accompanied by one of the guards. Even Mother was satisfied when I assured her of that, although I may have minimized to her the contact I’ll have with the prisoners.
It’s comforting, actually. Walking toward the gate each evening, I’ll hear two of them arguing about trivial matters, such as what sort of meat was in that night’s stew and others exchanging outrageous stories of feats from back home, or a strong tenor singing a folk song while scrubbing at the pump. When you can understand them, you realize how ordinary they are.
I wish I could convince the anonymous letter writers and general mutterers of this, but alas, it’s not to be. I continue to weather my share of snide comments around town. You’d be proud of me, Peter. Not once have I raised my voice or stormed away in a huff or accused anyone of being a hypocritical misanthrope. The better part of social adeptness, I think, is keeping one’s mouth firmly closed.1
My German is holding up, for the most part. Regional vocabulary and differences in pronunciation abound, and the rough German of the average soldier—I’ll admit, I’ve made a secret list of profanities so I’ll know when I’m being sworn at—differs enormously from the speech of the more educated officers.
Hauptmann (Captain) Stefan Werner, the camp’s spokesman, manages to find the balance between them. He watches me as I listen to the men, and if he can tell I’m struggling to understand, he finds a way to rephrase the statement to give me the definition in context so that I don’t have to admit my ignorance. It’s very kind.
I met him quite by accident earlier this week in a rather humiliating manner. As I walked from the gate to post headquarters early in the morning, I came upon a group of men sitting on a bare patch of grass near the walkway, stretching their arms toward their toes—shirtless, I’m afraid, so a point to the citizens concerned with the impropriety of my employment.
Their leader noticed my confused staring and asked if I liked what I saw, laughing at me, as I’m sure my face was ablaze. It’s a trial having coloring like mine, so pale that it gives away every single emotion.
I started to explain myself before I realized we were both speaking English, and his had barely a trace of an accent.
As the men continued to drill, dropping into an uncomfortable-looking stretch where their forearms bore their entire weight, he explained that he was continuing a calisthenics program started in Algona. “I’ve never heard of our soldiers doing calisthenics like this,” I said.
And Peter, didn’t he smirk and say, “Maybe if they had, you wouldn’t be losing the war.”
I informed him that America was not, in fact, losing the war and then asked him how he had learned English. “In 1936, I ran with the Olympic relay team in Berlin. What I saw there inspired me, and I determined that I would do all I could to dedicate my strength to my country again.”
I started to say I didn’t understand what that had to do with anything, when he smiled and added, “The 1944 Olympics were to take place in London.”
Isn’t that fascinating? Stefan learned English just for that, and some Japanese too, since the 1940 Olympics were to be in Tokyo. He never suspected the war would cancel both of them. It’s easy to see why the men chose him to be their spokesman; he has a natural air of authority. That will serve us well when interacting through him with the POWs, I hope.
Now back to you, Peter. I had no idea you were such a tragic hero, sacrificing yourself for the sake of true love. You’ve got all the makings of a Greek myth, except without interfering gods disguised as humans. Probably for the best. The arrival of a god or goddess in the mortal realms only seems to make things worse.
Do your parents let you know how Aya’s doing? And do I detect the faint traces of a broken heart for the girl who got away?
Either way, you can be glad everything worked out as it did. I learned more from you in three months than I’ve learned from some professors in two years, so you’re clearly a brilliant teacher. America is lucky to have you, even if you didn’t take the job for America’s sake.
Remind me, when is this latest class set to graduate? I’ve heard our boys island-hopping through the Marshall Islands are facing resistance even when they outnumber the Japanese 10–1. It seems like the Japanese would rather be destroyed than surrender. What a terrible thought.
You don’t think Stefan is right about the Axis powers inching ahead, do you? All of the radio reports imply we’re winning the war. They say the Allied forces in Italy are just a few battles away from breaking through into Rome, although casualties have been numerous. It’s terrible to say, I know, but it all feels very far away to me.
Tomorrow I begin censorship duties. It seems to be a heavy responsibility . . . and I’m not entirely sure I agree with all of the regulations. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone reading my private letters.
Too late now. Like Faust to Mephistopheles, I’ve sold my soul to the devil—sorry, army—and that means blindly taking orders. Onward, then!
Salutes,
Jo
1 In one instance where I desperately wanted to quote the Geneva Convention to snobbish Dorothy Lewis, I pictured my mouth cemented shut with Peter Pan peanut butter, causing me to laugh and Mrs. Lewis to become offended anyway.
P.S./Appendix: Baseball news: No major league teams are allowed to go south for spring training this year, since the military needs use of the railroads and the baseball commissioner is unswervingly patriotic. I got this from Mother, of all people. Turns out she decided to fill the silence of my absence by listening to baseball games. Her team is the St. Louis Cardinals, purely because she read a book called Meet Me in St. Louis last November. I tried to tell her this was not a logical way to develop an association, but she’s remained steadfast.
Given to Johanna by Major Davies on March 13, 1944
SUGGESTIONS PERTAINING TO THE CENSORSHIP OF POW COMMUNICATION
FROM THE OFFICE OF CENSORSHIP
The only explicit requirements of the Geneva Convention regarding postal regulations are that prisoners must be able to send and receive letters and postcards in their native language, and that any censorship of this mail must be carried out “by the shortest route,” without objectionable delay in delivery.
The following guidelines should be followed by all local camp censors:
Silentium Victoriam Accelerat
The Office of Censorship
From Private First Class Fritz Arnold to his mother Translated from German and censored by Johanna Berglund
March 11, 1944
Dear Mama,
I am well, but in [CENSORED] now, a place that is colder, but with more trees. At the last camp, in [CENSORED], you could see for miles in any direction. It was like God took a trowel and scraped clean a level foundation, then gave up before building anything on it.
They tell us that in late April, we will begin work at a farm, but until then I am filling potholes and replacing the dining hall roof out in the cold. I don’t mind growing American food. Their treaty keeps them from making us build weapons, and beets and potatoes are good crops.
The chocolate here is terrible, though. Not worth the scrip I paid for it at the canteen. We are allowed to spend our coupon wages there on cigarettes, soap, razors, soda, and other small items. I took a bar with the label Hershey, and, Mama, it tasted like a tablet of brown wax. I do not exaggerate. Last night I dreamt of Marzipankartoffeln powdered with cocoa dust. Even in the lean years, you gave them to us each Christmas season, remember? I wish you could send them now. From now on, I will spend my scrip on model wooden ships to assemble. They have some very nice ones.
I think often of the field where I would play football with Karl, of the way you would gather the chamomile flowers for tea, of Uncle Arnold’s exaggerated hunting tales. You must write and tell me every detail you would think is dull or ordinary.
All for now. I am out of space, and if we write more lines, they tell us they will return our letters.
Your dutiful son,
Fritz
From Dieter Bormann to his girlfriend Translated from German and censored by Johanna Berglund
March 12, 1944
My dear Rose,
Your last letter, written at Christmas, arrived two days ago. What bliss to read your words, dearest!
I’m glad to hear of your father’s improved health and that you’ve perfected a chicory coffee. I’d give anything to see you in that “new” dress you described, made-over or not. You always light up any room you enter.
Only one part made me frown. Please, Rose, don’t let your mother keep inviting stuffy old Arland von Bethmann over for dinner—you know just what she’s trying to do, and you deserve better than a middle-aged bureaucrat. I’ll be back soon, I know it. It’s agony hearing you describe your talks with him . . . does he still chew with his mouth open? I’ll bet he does. Listen to me: Arland von Bethmann is nothing but trouble.
I’ve heard a rumor that one of my comrades is planning to start an orchestra here in the camp. Ha! What instruments do you suppose he’ll find, darling? I’ll play the tin cans with a spoon. Maybe they’ll give me a solo part.
Today I asked a guard if he’d ever seen an Indian, and he said dozens of them. They still roam the woods. He said that’s one reason there’s a fence around our camp, besides the packs of wolves they say live there. Many of the cities here are named in the natives’ language to appease their gods, and he warned me never to be seen close to the fence at night—it’s within arrow’s range of the trees. I won’t survive Rommel’s campaigns only to die at the hand of an American native.
Are you keeping spirits up? The other day, I heard that [CENSORED]. I wish I could count down the days till I’ll be with you again. No matter the number, it would be far too long.
Yours as long as the stars endure,
Dieter
From Captain Stefan Werner to his father Translated from German and censored by Johanna Berglund
March 12, 1944
Dear Father,
I have waited several weeks to write again, hoping I would hear from you first, but no replies have reached me since I’ve come to America. Is all well at the factory? Are you in good health? I know letters can take many months to arrive with both Germany and America censoring mail.
We were recently transferred to a new camp. The men are being sent to plant at local farms once the soil is thawed, and they seem relatively content, though this doesn’t mean they have no complaints. Recently, they have been, in this order: quality of food, demands for a Catholic priest to hold Sunday Mass, a supply of thicker blankets, and a showing of a Western film starring Marlene Dietrich as a saloon girl.
They come to me because I’ve been elected camp spokesman. I can’t change everything, but the American commander will usually at least listen, although his executive officer doesn’t care for me at all. I often find myself reporting to him at post headquarters these days. Not the circumstances I would have chosen for a command, but one can’t always choose.
Tell me all you can of the family. Does Amalie still express an interest in medicine? I’m sorry she is too young yet to serve as a field nurse, but perhaps she might gain training when she is older. I know Aunt Karin is strongly against it, but you must reason with her. One of our female translators at the camp has gone to college, and it doesn’t seem to have spoiled her womanhood at all—though she does have a temper, particularly when confronted with inconvenient facts that do not fit with her American ideals.
I’ve kept up with my calisthenics, but I haven’t been able to improve my sprinting time since arriving here. Maybe the next Olympics will be in Berlin again, after all of this is over and [CENSORED].
They say that a representative from the YMCA War Prisoners’ Aid will be coming next week, and I will be leading him around the camp. His organization provides recreation and educational opportunities to prisoners. We’ve heard rumors of what he will bring with him. An easy way to sort one type of man from another is to ask whether he’s more excited about the possibility of a library of German books or a Ping-Pong table. I, of course, am with the readers. Finally, a way to pass the long, cold days! If we are lucky, perhaps we will be allowed a movie projector. I haven’t seen a film in over a year and greatly miss it.
I’m sure you can guess I haven’t heard anything recently about German athletics beyond our own football teams here at the camp. Please write when you can and give me news of how the Wolves are doing, especially any victories.
This is not, I know, what you wanted for me when you sent me off in uniform, proud and brave and foolish. None but God can know where we end up and why. My thoughts and prayers are with you and the rest of the family, and I hope yours are with me.
Stefan
From Johanna to Pastor Sorenson
March 13, 1944
Pastor Sorenson,
I stopped by while you were out visiting the shut-ins, and Mr. Watson interrupted his cleaning of the sanctuary to explain that all of your books are organized by subject matter, era, and theological affiliation, with a special section for books you personally enjoy more than the rest—meaning I couldn’t possibly find what I was looking for in your absence.
I have to admit, I’m appalled at this system. Couldn’t you sort by last name? Why do we bother having an alphabet if no one’s going to arrange anything by it?
Anyway, if you wouldn’t mind setting aside a few volumes of Luther for me, I’m trying to find his views regarding the Jewish people. I can’t say whether that would be found in a collection of sermons or a commentary, but give me whatever seems useful, and don’t worry about the size. I’m a fast reader. I can pick them up on Sunday.
Thank you for taking the trouble.
Johanna (Berglund)
From Pastor Sorenson to Johanna Left in the front cover of On the Jews and Their Lies by Martin Luther
March 14, 1944
Dear Johanna,
Ah. You’ve stumbled upon a much-discussed controversy. Had you wandered the halls of my seminary when Erik and Annika were just toddlers, you might have caught more than a few heated discussions on the subject, particularly after news of the Kiev pogroms in 1919. Terrible things, and I’m ashamed to say we cloaked academics reduced it to a debate over the division of covenants.
I’ve placed a marker in the section of the book where you’ll want to start. If you want to start. I can’t say it’s reading I would recommend for a young woman, but then, I imagine you have your reasons for wanting to know. You always do.
It wouldn’t have anything to do with your new employment, would it?
I give you this caution: Luther was old when he wrote these thoughts, and deeply pained from numerous chronic illnesses. His frustration was compounded by years of unsuccessful attempts to convert Jewish audiences. That’s not to excuse his harsh views, you understand.
Or perhaps it is. Perhaps I worry that in my later years, I will begin to calcify into bitterness, looking at the failed aspects of my ministry and spewing ill-considered words that will become part of my legacy.
Should that happen, I hope someone would reason with me, or even gently guide me away from the pulpit, dearly as I love it. That would be better than leading my flock astray at the end. Will you remember that, please?
Ah, but I forgot. You won’t be here long enough for that. It seems so natural to see your face in the congregation beside your parents that it slipped my mind that this is a temporary visit.
As to my organizational system, when one is preparing a sermon on the twenty-third psalm, in haste for a funeral perhaps, one doesn’t have time to look up each and every passage to see who might have written commentary on it. Besides, what of Irenaeus and Augustine and their like, who have no surnames by which I could alphabetize?
Peace be with you,
Pastor A. Sorenson
From Johanna to Olive
March 15, 1944
Dear Olive,
Your letter made me smile; it’s so good to hear from you. Thanks for trying your best at the detective work. No one seems to know anything about the suspiciously coincidental timing of my scholarship’s termination, so I’m doing my best to—as you Brits say—“keep calm and carry on.”
Work at Camp Ironside is going as well as can be expected. Nothing particularly exciting, just translating written and verbal communication with the German prisoners. We have an American staff in place to cook and someone to clean the guards’ quarters and the post headquarters, where my office and, more important, the commander’s and executive officer’s offices are located. The worry, apparently, is letting Germans inside who might overhear or confiscate sensitive information, though I am to serve as chief censor of incoming and outgoing mail, so I’d catch it before it could be transmitted. (Official permission to be nosy—how you would love it, Olive!)
The POWs themselves are assigned to crews to pick up trash, clean the barracks for inspection, wash dishes, and keep the recreation hall and other common areas neat and tidy. This is all supposed to take place after six o’clock supper (I refuse to call it “mess” or “chow line”—really, the military managed to assign the least appetizing words possible to food), or on Sunday afternoons and evenings. We have a good list of farmers in need of help, and I’m sure they won’t be disappointed with their new workers. Given enough time, I’m sure the town will calm down, realize they don’t need my position, and release me to return to Minneapolis. I’ll be back in our cozy flat before you know it.
Thank you for mentioning Oxford. It’s easy to get so mired in day-to-day life that I forget what I’m working toward. I know the dons there won’t take just any Yank who wanders through their gates, but maybe this translation work will set me apart from those with a similar academic record. I can only hope.
As for your brother—Clive, wasn’t it? I’m afraid I call him “Chive” in my mind, as if your parents named all of you after obscure vegetables—I’m never opposed to having tea with anyone, as long as that person isn’t dull or arrogant or boorish or overly interested in discussing the weather. But I do wish you’d save your romantic scheming for another victim. If I’m to be truly free to decide what to do with my life after Oxford, I can’t be tied down to anyone, not even a dashing British Navy hero.
I’ll admit that I have no way of sorting out that alphabet soup of gossip and no desire to attempt it. You know, if you cleared that clutter out of your brain, there would be more than enough room for all the chemical formulas in the world.
Mother made the enclosed mittens for you—she knits compulsively from November until April, as though she feels single-handedly responsible for the survival of Minnesota residents through another winter. (I left the seclusion of my bedroom to sew on the blue buttons, so you might say I contributed.)
Stay warm, and I hope to see you in a few months.
Your friend,
Johanna
From Peter to Johanna
March 17, 1944
Dear Jo,
Sounds like things are bustling along at the camp. Beyond the gawkers and newspaper editorial writers, no other signs of unrest? How was morale once the men went off to work?
Way to go with the baseball news. Tell your mother she made a lucky pick for her allegiance. The Cardinals are looking pretty good this year.
As for your spokesperson’s story about learning Japanese and English for the Olympics . . . it seems too storybook quaint for a man who’s fluent in the lingo of the main combatants during wartime. Much more likely that he completed training just like ours here at Camp Savage to be a spy and code breaker, or at least a diplomatic go-between. Does he know French too?
Be careful around him, Jo. If I’ve learned anything in this program, it’s that people who can speak the language of the enemy are the most dangerous of all.
In Camp Savage news, I broke up a fight this week. I bet you never expected that out of our ramshackle university, but remember these boys are young and hotheaded (compared to my advanced twenty-six), and not all of them take well to nine hours of studying every day.
The commotion started in the gymnasium. I heard the shouting even outside, and inside, the noise was overwhelming, a general outcry mixed with names hurled out by the various sides: Kotonks for the mainlanders, Buddaheads for the more traditional islanders. There was a tight circle of onlookers around the scuffle, and I had to throw an elbow to break through, the head instructor alongside me. Once John Aiso and I separated the fighting duo, we recognized them as Terry Tanabe and Roy Sakakida. They were breathing hard, and Roy’s nose dripped blood onto the shiny wood flooring.
When John demanded to know what had happened, Terry answered, “Defending my people.” He is, unquestionably, the leader of the Hawaiian newcomers but is usually even-tempered, grinning his way through any difficulty.
Roy, realizing we were all staring at him and waiting, shrugged. “All I said was, how’re they going to translate when they can barely speak English?”
Terry lunged at him again, John straining to hold him back. “We speak as well as you!” Which is true for Terry, from an upper-class family, but most of the Hawaiians use a pidgin English spoken by natives that sounds like uneducated drawl to mainlander ears.
Anyone could see Roy got the worst of the fight, not that he would admit it. Terry’s father was a kendo instructor on Oahu, and his son must have been at the top of his class. No bamboo swords at Fort Savage, thank goodness . . . but none of the protective armor used in the martial art’s sparring either.
Before John could launch into a long list of rules they’d broken and then mete out punishment, I saw my chance. “Are you going to be like the politicians you hate?”
Finally, someone asked, like I knew they would, “What do you mean, sensei?”
“Deciding who’s in and who’s out based on heritage. You’re drawing your own exclusion-zone lines right through this school.”
I’ve got to say it was a brilliant observation—sobered them up pretty good. Unfortunately, only the mainland students felt it sock them in the gut. Their families are the ones affected by the exclusion zone.
Besides restricting recreation privileges, John assigned both boys to a study hall. Together. And here’s the best part: I’ll be supervising. He didn’t bother to ask me first, but I covered my surprise and agreed as if I knew exactly what I would do for a couple of hours each Sunday night alone with two students who would rather review chokeholds than grammar rules. I guess I have a few days to figure it out.
I know most Americans think that one citizen of Japanese descent must be the same as another, but it’s not true. Besides the difference in the way they speak, the mainlanders are often more reserved and cynical because of the way America has treated them, which can be (and is) interpreted as surliness or snobbishness. The Hawaiians are generally more boisterous and bossy, used to different cultural norms, which can be (and is) interpreted as ignorance and hotheadedness. So it’s a mess when we throw them together.
I want to prepare a lesson on the art of not taking offense, not just for Terry and Roy but for all the boys, because you and I both know these young men are going to face prejudice in whatever military unit they end up in. Their fellow American soldiers will bully and belittle them, call them “yellow Japs” and worse, and if there’s a fight . . . the Japanese Americans will be the ones blamed and court-martialed. Every single time, no matter who started it. I can’t let that happen.
Any advice for me?
Off to plan what might be the tensest study hall of all time. Wish me luck. Maybe I’ll just make them do push-ups for two hours.
Your friend,
Peter
P.S. Tragic hero? Me? Ha. If you’re determined to make a story out of it, nothing I will say can stop you, and I’ll admit that my hapless teenage self wrote Aya a few poems while I was studying over in Japan. But like I said, she was scared of me. It’s hard to fall hard for someone who looks at you like you’re Al Capone. I’m happy for her. Who knows, maybe someday I’ll find a love like hers.
From Johanna to Peter
March 21, 1944
German Idiom of the Day: klar wie Kloßbrühe. Literally, “clear as dumpling broth,” meaning transparently obvious, often used sarcastically.
Context: A German officer’s haughty response when a guard asked him if he understood that even he must stay far away from the gate so he wouldn’t be shot. I translated it as, “Certainly, sir.”
Dear Peter,
On one hand, it’s kind of you to worry about me. On the other, every single one of Ironside Lake’s 1,900 citizens is worrying about me, so you can leave that to them. I’ll be perfectly fine, and Stefan Werner is no troublemaker. Yes, he’s more outspoken about the Nazi party than many of the men—most have stronger opinions about which region makes the best bratwurst—but he knows his job, like mine, is to keep the camp as peaceful as possible. Most of our conversations are about items the men would like added to the canteen or changes to the menu, for goodness’ sake. Hardly anything dangerous.
And now for some cheerful news for you: Today was Thawing Day. If you haven’t heard of it, that’s because Dad made it up. It’s a different day each year, usually a Saturday in late March or early April, but once the first week of May, when we had a late blizzard. The qualifying factor is that nearly all the snow must have melted.
Just after sunrise on Thawing Day, Dad gets out his knee-high rubber waders and sloshes into the muck of the town, fishing out stray hats, gloves, and mittens accidentally abandoned and buried in the snow. He has a near-magical gift for seeing a scrap of soggy yarn under slush, and by now he knows the places with the highest concentration of lost winterwear (school bus stop, diner parking lot, etc.). As girls, Annika and I went with him, digging through the geological strata of natural debris to extract the woolen artifacts. It was the best sort of treasure hunt.
Annika has long been too mature for such things, and now I join Mother in the task of cleaning the sodden outerwear. We haul the old metal washtub from the barn and toss everything in, pounding with a broomstick, then empty the murky water and start again. It’s usually three rounds before Mother pulls out the best-looking specimens to throw into our wringer. The rest are subjected to a soaking in her potent brew of stain remover. I don’t know all the ingredients, but it involves bleach, baking soda, and possibly arsenic. The barn smells like a chemical laboratory for a full week afterward.
Once everything is as clean and dry as can be managed, Dad strings a clothesline outside city hall, in full view of downtown. He used to hang a sign telling everyone to reclaim any lost items, but by now, people are used enough to the tradition that you can hear people talking about it in the streets. “Saw my first robin today; guess it’s almost Thawing Day”—that sort of thing.
This year, owing to the early November snowfall, Dad gathered a record twenty-three mittens (only two matched pairs), fourteen gloves, eight hats, six scarves, three earmuffs, and two socks. “How does anyone lose a sock in the snow?” Mother always proclaims, but we get at least one every year.
As usual, Dad took several trips outside to greet the reclaimers at the laundry line, congratulating children at the re-pairing of their Christmas-gift velveteen mittens, shaking hands with the sheepish adults, and telling for the hundredth time the story of when he discovered his very own plaid muffler behind our abandoned chicken coop. He likes to pretend it’s a necessary civic duty as mayor, but I’ve seen him mark his calendar weeks in advance with a red star for a potential Thawing Day.
Cornelia Knutson showed up this year, helping me pin the articles on the line and staying for several hours, chatting with the women, arguing with several city council members about what caused the end of the Depression, and handing out licorice drops to children like she was running for office herself.
All around a success, I think.
Only a few more weeks until the farm labor begins. The men have been divided into units based on the number of workers requested for each farm. They are anxious to begin—you don’t need me to tell you that long days inside during a Minnesota winter begin to grate quite quickly. I’ve heard the men jokingly refer to themselves as Kartoffelsoldaten, or potato soldiers. I rather like the name, and I certainly like the fact that their battles will be against grubs and weeds instead of our flesh-and-blood troops.
By this point, I finally feel like I’m in a routine: paperwork and censorship in the morning, and then Evelyn Davies usually drops by in the afternoon or invites me to lunch, where I endure an hour of inane conversation in exchange for better-quality food than what the mess hall serves. Do you remember my roommate, Olive Bradshaw? The one with the British accent who could say more words in a minute than the two of us could in an hour—combined? Evelyn reminds me of her, only less good-natured. Olive only wants to know what’s going on, whereas it feels like Evelyn wants to know what’s going on so she can actively use it against you.
Afterward, I check in with the POW officers, who will remain within the stockade rather than going to worksites, and sometimes I send a report to the Algona office. Not especially dramatic, but not as terrible as I’d imagined.
Your language school seems to be having more conflict than our prison camp. How goes the study hall? Tip: If they begin shooting spitballs filled with actual artillery, call in reinforcements.
I’m afraid I can’t think of a single other piece of advice to give you. If people were simple and diagrammable like a sentence, I’d have an entire instruction manual for you, but they just aren’t. It’s a shame.
I look forward to hearing how you manage, though if all goes well, you’ll only have to keep writing to me until the fall semester begins and I’m released to return to Minneapolis. I hope so, at least. Maybe I should go out to the woods on our property and find the playhouse we built there as children—Annika and her brother, Erik, and I. Erik created a little wishing well near the edge of the stream, and every summer we’d toss a few coins in. I haven’t been back there for years.
But that’s silly. I don’t need wishing wells. Just hard work so Camp Ironside will stay perfectly at peace.
On Thursday we have a special visitor. A man from the YMCA—they work with POWs, both ours and the Axis ones—is inspecting the camp, and Major Davies, from the way he frets, seems to think he’ll report us to the Red Cross and that Roosevelt himself will shut the camp down. The major doubled the cleaning brigades and even set some of the men to painting shutters and trim a jaunty navy—probably the brightest color the military allows.
Can I admit something to you? It’s awful and deeply unpatriotic, but part of me hopes we will get closed down and I can go back to the Cities. Don’t tell anyone. It’s not like I plan to bribe any of the POWs to start a riot or even slip a worm into the YMCA inspector’s salad, but I won’t complain if he decides our men are better off back in Iowa.
But audaces fortuna iuvat, as they say. Fortune favors the bold. And while I am many things, a bold saboteur is not one of them.
Jo
P.S./Appendix: Love poems, you say? Is there anything I could do to convince you to part with one of those sappy teenage verses?
EVIDENCE FOR THE PROSECUTION
FROM DR. HOWARD HONG TO MAJOR DAVIES
March 23, 1944
Subject: Report on Branch Camp in Ironside Lake, Minnesota
Dear Major Davies,
I concluded my inspection of the camp while you were out addressing the Rotary Club about the progress of the men here, so I’m dictating this note with my conclusions to your secretary.
Let me first applaud you on a well-run camp. I’ve made a personal visit to almost all fourteen of Minnesota’s camps, and this is among the most secure, sanitary, and well-ordered I’ve seen.
For the men’s use, I’ve left a phonograph and some records, an accordion and a trombone (at the request of Otto von Neindorff, your aspiring orchestra conductor), some woodworking tools, and a collection of books in German, as well as a secondhand Ping-Pong table and two chessboards in the recreation hall. These are all provided by private donations to the YMCA for this specific program.
One retired preacher donated his German theological library, which I’m sure the men will find uplifting. Of particular significance for me is Kierkegaard’s Works of Love, the volume that inspired me to leave my job in academia and join the YMCA War Prisoners’ Aid effort. In it, you’ll find this passage: “Men think that it is impossible for a human being to love his enemies, for enemies are hardly able to endure the sight of one another. Well, then, shut your eyes—and your enemy looks just like your neighbor.” Wise words for us in these difficult times.
I have only one area of concern: the twenty-odd officers who have elected to remain at the camp rather than go out with the enlisted men. Your camp spokesman in particular seemed a restless, intelligent sort who shouldn’t be idle for long. Although I’m sure a good many of the officers would find getting their hands dirty to be of some benefit, I suggest providing them with some kind of constructive activity to occupy their time.
In my conversations with the officers, the most frequently mentioned area of interest was English lessons. We have found in other camps that these classes can be a powerful tool for reeducation. Readings are pulled from classic American rhetoric, and instruction can also be given in the benefits of a democracy. Who knows what fruit the seeds of this instruction might one day bloom into? In fact, in New Ulm, they’ve had students asking about the process to become a US citizen after the war.
I’m sure your designated translators are quite busy—I’ve heard you have only three guards with basic German fluency. But if you can spare one of them, the YMCA will supply readers, paper, and other supplies for a classroom.
Actually, come to think of it, what about that woman civilian translator who accompanied me today? I’m sorry, I can’t recall her name. I was a university professor before taking up this job, and there’s something about the way she looks you right in the eye and fires away answers that exudes authority. She might be a natural teacher with that sort of confidence, and I don’t doubt that she could keep a room of privileged German officers in line.
The main thing is to make sure the curriculum is straight-down-the-line pro-American. It will lean toward indoctrination, I’ll admit, but for a good cause. If your translator accepts the job and does a fair job representing our country, she may have the most significant position in the camp.
Don’t hesitate to call the main office if any needs or concerns arise, and keep up the good work, Major.
Dr. Howard Hong
Field Secretary,
YMCA War Prisoners’ Aid