Exhibition "The Bird-Cage"

“We are about 300 here, supposedly Americans, but there are rather Poles, Czechs, and all kinds: the true American is rare.” Thus wrote Josef Nassy in a letter to his wife in 1942.

Citizens of the United States and of Central and South American countries found themselves arrested and transported to civilian internment camps such as Laufen because Americans were potentially useful in prisoner of war exchanges. Some were ‘true’ Americans, trapped in Germany and German-occupied countries after the United States entered the war. Among them were men who had never set foot in an American country but derived citizenship through a parent or other family member.

Also interned in Laufen were European Jews with fraudulent Latin American passports who desperately hoped that possessing pieces of paper that identified them as Latin American citizens would keep them safe.

The most sizeable contingent of Americans was a group of young men born in the United States to Polish immigrants. In the 1930s, with the American economy in decline and jobs scarce, large numbers of these immigrants returned to Poland, often bringing with them children who had spent only their first few years in the United States. Although citizens of the United States by birth, these Polish internees had spent their lives far removed from it.

The Americans ranged in age from young teenagers to the infirm elderly. Among the internees were musicians and tap dancers, boxers, a wrestler, and even a professional roller-skater. Some Americans were in Europe on work assignments or had chosen to study in Europe. Others were First World War veterans who decided not to return home to the United States after serving in France. Some Black Americans had crossed the Atlantic seeking freedoms denied them at home, only to find themselves prisoners in Laufen.

The first two American camp seniors were Emerson Kidder and Jacques Risseeuw, both born in the United States. The third was Herbert Gompertz, Belgian by birth, but a naturalized American citizen. Some internees remained in Laufen until they were liberated, but others left early, repatriated in exchange for German prisoners of war.