Wartime Treatment of Germans Questioned

Eberhard Fuhr holds up a government brochure as he speaks as part of a traveling exhibit in Milltown, Wis., Friday, June 8, 2007, about internment during World War II. In 1943, 17-year-old Fuhr was taken out of his high school classroom in Cincinnati, arrested by FBI agents, and eventually sent to an internment camp for "enemy aliens" in Texas, where he spent the next 4 1/2 years with his family. The Senate voted this week to establish a commission to look into the treatment of German and other Europeans in the U.S. during World War II. i (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt) (Ann Heisenfelt - AP)

WASHINGTON -- In 1943, 17-year-old Eberhard Fuhr was taken out of his high school classroom in Cincinnati, arrested by FBI agents, and sent off to an internment camp for "enemy aliens" in Texas, where he spent the next 4 1/2 years with his family. Thousands of Germans experienced a similar fate. They were detained in far fewer numbers in this country than Japanese.

The stories of the Germans have gotten little attention so far, but the Senate took a step toward changing that this week, voting to look into the treatment of Germans and other Europeans in the U.S. during World War II.

The legislation's status is uncertain because it was passed as an amendment to the immigration bill, which stalled in the Senate this week.

Still, just getting a vote on the issue was an accomplishment for Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., who represents a large German population. For the last six years, a hold placed by an anonymous Republican senator had kept it from coming up for a vote.

"Congress and the U.S. government did the right thing by recognizing and apologizing for the mistreatment of Japanese Americans during World War II," Feingold said. "That same respect has not been shown to the many German Americans, Italian Americans, and European Latin Americans."

Feingold's "Wartime Treatment Study Act" would set up a commission to examine the treatment of German, Italian and other Europeans; and a second commission to look into how Jewish refugees fleeing persecution were treated.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., opposed the bill, saying it was based on findings "that slander America incorrectly." Those findings say, in part, that U.S. wartime policies were "devastating" to Germans and Italians living in the United States.

Sessions also cited a May 8 letter by Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Hertling said that the Justice Department contacted the senior historian for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum back in 2001, "who advised that that bill's identical depiction of the treatment of Axis citizens and European Americans was 'outrageously exaggerated.'"

The letter doesn't identify the historian by name. A Holocaust Museum spokesman identified him as Peter Black, but said the museum wouldn't have any comment on the legislation.

The historian's comments underscore the need for the commission, said Feingold, who is Jewish.

"For anyone to deny the stories that German-Americans in Milwaukee told me, convincing me to do this, is a whitewashing of reality," he said. "There was some pretty rough stuff that happened, in terms of people losing their businesses, in terms of being interned in Texas _ a variety of things that had happened to people that had done nothing wrong."