February 21, 1944
Dear Jo,
If you’re reading this, it’s because our last conversation was just what I expected: full of forced smiles and things we didn’t get a chance to say. I guess that’s the way good-byes usually are.
You’ve never said exactly why you hate the thought of going home, and I don’t need to know, but I remember how hard it was when you went back for your friend’s funeral last year. It was six weeks before you even smiled again. (Yes, I counted.) I’d rather you not spend the next six months stewing in misery.
So make a new friend or two. Do your work as well as I know you can. Keep praying and ask for help every now and then. And write me if you have the time. I’ll even tolerate a little complaining, but only if you also report any interesting baseball stories, since I haven’t got time to listen to games on the radio. (Don’t even think about telling me you don’t know the terms—you taught yourself Latin from books you smuggled out of your pastor’s library before you were fifteen. You can learn what a pop fly is.)
One more thing. I’ve mentioned my grandmother Baba Yone before, but I don’t think I ever told you what she said when the news came that our family would be sent to the internment camp in Arizona. The first part wasn’t a surprise, it’s what all of the older generation say in response to adversity: “Shikata ga nai.” It can’t be helped. But then she added (in Japanese; she doesn’t speak English), “We can do anything we must. How we do it, though, is up to us.”
Then again, she also didn’t want me to leave the internment camp and teach here at the language school. So maybe it’s harder advice to follow than either of us thought.
Anyway, you’ve got a right to be angry about being forced somewhere against your will. So do I. But I keep thinking about what John Aiso (the head of the language school) said in one of his motivational speeches: “We must live like the cherry trees in our nation’s capital: of Japanese origin and symbol of their knightly lore, but taking root in the richness of American soil, enhancing with beauty in their season the Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Memorials.”
It’s not a perfect metaphor, but you can be Ironside Lake’s cherry tree. You don’t really belong, but you’ve been planted there for now, and this is your chance to bloom.
You can, and you will. I know it.
All that said . . . come back soon, if you can. I’m going to miss you.
Your friend,
Peter
EVIDENCE FOR THE PROSECUTION
FROM LIEUTENANT WALTER ROSS, COMMANDER OF POW CAMP OWATONNA, TO MAJOR J. E. DAVIES
February 11, 1944
Major Davies,
I was pleased to receive your letter, having heard of you through your work in this war and the last. I share your interest in radio, though I never advanced past tinkering with a Philmore Crystal Radio set in my youth to actual cryptography. I hope the following information proves useful.
This post has been an unusual one, but for the most part, the prisoners are well behaved, expressing their requests through their spokesman and working hard enough to please their employers. Many even attend church services on Sundays.
There has only been one incident of note. Last September, three of our prisoners dug under the fence after the Saturday night bed check, knowing there would be no such check on Sunday. Two were captured nearly immediately. The third returned on his own the next day, in civilian clothes . . . after having attended the county fair, of all things. His list of “criminal activities” was as follows: buying a sandwich, playing a carnival game, and riding the Ferris wheel. Clearly no significant espionage or sabotage occurred.
However, this incident proved how simple it would be for prisoners, if inclined, to evade confinement. The trouble, as I’m sure you’re aware, is that, under the Geneva Convention, it isn’t technically a crime for prisoners to escape. It’s a mad world we live in. A guard can shoot a POW on sight if he’s seen crawling under the fence and refuses to halt . . . but if that same POW escapes and is returned days later, the maximum legal penalty is a few weeks of solitary confinement.
We simply don’t have the manpower or the resources to turn the camp into a true prison. The New Ulm camp has also reported incidents of German-sympathizing individuals assisting the POWs in breaking camp regulations and even conspiring to let them outside of the camp at night for meals or entertainment.
Among this group, young women are most likely to bring you trouble. The prisoners will work alongside these women, whose natural compassion, and perhaps also the need for adventure and a lack of available American young men, will cause them to begin secret assignations with the prisoners. There have been a number of reports of such women helping the men steal away from the fields and even, on occasion, the camp itself. All of this to further their romances.
We are used to treating men as the enemies, Major. But I cannot overemphasize that, in this case, your greatest foes may be the most unlikely among you.
I wish you all the best in your new position. Please don’t hesitate to write again if you need any further advice.
Lieutenant Walter Ross
CHAPTER TWO
Editorial in the Ironside Broadside on February 18, 1944
Dear Editor,
With all the tomfoolery going on in the world these days, nothing should surprise me. But I can’t guess what those stooges in Fort Snelling were thinking, coming up with this scheme of hiring the mayor’s daughter. I asked ten different men at Nelson’s Bar and Grill what they thought of some doll sauntering into a POW camp to “translate,” and each of them said the same thing: “It’ll be nothing but trouble.”
They’ve got guards for the towers, sure, but who’s going to guard her? She oughtn’t trouble her pretty head about it, just resign and let the men do the work with the blasted prisoners.
They’re tossing us something they think we want, but they don’t know us. City slickers, the lot of them. Looks to me like we’re being bribed to let this dirty scheme through.
That’s right, dirty. That’s what I think of foreigners being hauled in to do our work.
And another thing: What happens when our boys come back and they’ve got migrants and Krauts doing their work? What’ll they think of us when they can’t even get a working wage in their own hometown and have to go off to the city? I bet then you’ll be ashamed you stood by and let it happen.
Well, not me. If you’re smart, you’ll start asking the same questions I’ve been asking and realize we haven’t gotten a single answer.
A Concerned Citizen
From Major Davies to Johanna, left at her home
February 20, 1944
Dear Miss Berglund,
I’ve taken the liberty to write so this letter of instructions will await you upon arrival, as I will not be coming from Fort Snelling until tomorrow. First of all, deepest congratulations on your new position! I hope your travel was pleasant.
I’m sure you’ll want to take a day or two to unpack and greet hometown friends. Please report to Camp Ironside (that’s our new facility; we’re not very creative at naming in the army!) on Thursday at 0700 hours to begin your training and some initial translations for camp signage. You are then welcome to join my wife and me for lunch in our new quarters—Evelyn will be delighted to meet you!