- Right.
- So we'll sit and talk for as long as we care to.
- And then my job and the tough one
- is when I get it all together, I have
- to pick and choose little bits from everybody
- that we've interviewed.
- And we've interviewed six of the former refugees.
- Did you get any of them in a group?
- Well, we got Adam and Steffi together.
- We went back to Oswego.
- And that was exciting.
- The
- Careful, you're still wired.
- You're still connected to the
- OK.
- Hand me that piece of picture there, will you?
- And you saw this.
- It looks like Adam's drawings.
- It is an Adam Munz cartoon.
- How about that?
- Oh.
- I have lots of questions.
- We'll just talk all day long.
- Tell me briefly what you were doing
- before you were contacted and asked
- to be the director of the refugee shelter.
- Immediately before?
- I was in Lima, Peru.
- I had been there as the director of economic mission
- for our government.
- And prior to that, two years before,
- I had worked for the Relocation Authority
- in the Japanese relocation thing.
- So Dylan Mayer called me from Washington and says,
- Joe, we want you to go back and manage a refugee shelter.
- And it was as simple as that.
- Did he tell you anything about why
- the shelter was being opened?
- He explained why they were coming
- and that they were coming over simply as temporary guests.
- I thought I was going to run a kind of a resort hotel
- for a group of friendly refugees.
- And frankly, I hadn't been very happy about my participation
- in the Japanese relocation role.
- And I thought, here is an opportunity to redeem myself.
- Of course, ultimately, I found that I
- was running another small concentration camp.
- But yes, I had been in Lima just before this assignment.
- Did Dylan Mayer or anyone from the government
- explain why it was only this one camp
- and why there were only 1,000 coming?
- Yes.
- He said it was a token gesture on our part.
- There are many, many refugees in Italy
- and other liberated areas.
- They were in the way of the army occupations and costly
- to maintain in camps over there.
- He hoped that this gesture would persuade
- other countries, such as Canada and Latin countries,
- to take large numbers of refugees.
- When they arrived in Oswego at Fort Ontario,
- many of the refugees were surprised and bewildered
- to find a fence surrounding them.
- What did you, as the camp director,
- tell them to calm their fears?
- Can I interrupt?
- Sure.
- You can shut off at any time, can't you?
- Sure.
- My hearing is bad.
- And I'm not getting your questions.
- OK.
- Can I come a little closer?
- Sure.
- Oh, let me.
- Stay where you are, and I'll come closer.
- OK.
- OK.
- How's that?
- My question is--
- Don't speak much more loudly, but as clearly as you can.
- OK.
- OK.
- My question is this--
- when the refugees arrived, many of them
- were shocked and upset with the fence that surrounded the camp.
- What did you tell them to calm their fears?
- Well, I told them something that probably was not quite true.
- And that was that the fence was as much
- for their protection as anything else,
- to keep the curious, the intruders out.
- I thought they had nothing to fear from the local population,
- but that they should be secure in their own community
- and not have to be bothered with outsiders.
- Were many of the refugees coming to you very upset
- and complaining about the fence or asking about the fence?
- This was immediately an issue.
- They were great organizers.
- They organized a committee on any pretext
- or to meet any situation.
- And yes, their protests on this score
- were immediate and continued all the time they were there.
- They felt that they had been misled
- into what they were told by the Army interviewers in Italy.
- And they were sure that they were coming to the United
- States as honored guests.
- And I guess nobody had told them that they
- would be restricted, that their movements would be restricted.
- They assumed that even though they would live temporarily
- in the shelter, that they would be free to come and go.
- Why were the refugees in quarantine for the first month?
- Purely a health matter.
- Our health laws or procedures require certain quarantine
- measures against the foreigners who come to the country.
- You have to be sure they have the right vaccinations
- and so forth.
- I think that was the only reason.
- During the quarantine, many of the refugees
- had family here in the United States.
- Yes.
- There must have been family reunions through the fence.
- What was that like?
- Oh, not only through the fence.
- But their families were free to visit them inside the shelter.
- I don't think there was any difficulty about getting
- permits to come in to visit.
- They simply had to come to the gate and identify themselves.
- Entry was free, reasonably so.
- Exit was difficult.
- Do you remember the controversy over white bread
- and black bread?
- Over what?
- White bread and black bread that the refugees wanted.
- Yes, I do.
- This was part of the general problem
- of providing an appropriate diet for the Jewish people,
- particularly the Orthodox.
- And this is one thing we had overlooked
- in setting up the shelter.
- We hadn't provided for a kosher kitchen and kosher food.
- Well, immediately, the problem arose.
- We installed a kosher kitchen.
- And the Jewish agencies helped with this.
- They brought in the dishes, and the utensils, and so forth.
- So I think that takes care of the black bread question.
- The camp tried to run itself.
- They set up an advisory council with 10 members.
- But that wasn't easy, was it?
- All the nationality groups.
- It was a difficult thing.
- Number one, the government, and I
- mean the War Relocation Authority, which administered
- the shelter, expected the refugees
- to meet their own needs as far as they could.
- We set up a hospital, the facilities were all there.
- But we provided no doctors.
- They had plenty of doctors.
- Dr. Margolis, a very distinguished man,
- was head physician.
- So all of the services inside the shelter
- were provided by the refugees themselves.
- Some of them were pleasant and some were not.
- Now, to get back to your question,
- it was my policy to give the refugees the greatest
- measure of self-government that they could have.
- And this meant running their own affairs to the extent
- that they did not get into trouble
- with the regulations we had to establish for conducting
- an orderly operation.
- They had difficulty setting up executive committees
- for the simple reason that they had a great many divisions
- among themselves.
- Some were political-- the Yugoslavs didn't naturally
- love the Germans.
- There was difficulty between the Poles and some Russians.
- And the Orthodox Jews didn't always get along
- with the liberal Jews.
- So these kinds of problems made it
- difficult to form committees which
- could serve across the board.
- And during these troubles, they did extremely well, I think,
- in this connection.
- At one point, you went to a Sabbath service at the camp.
- And the rabbi started to give a sermon in Serbo-Croatian,
- as the refugees tell me.
- And some of the Germans were upset and walked out
- because they didn't understand the language.
- And there was a misunderstanding there.
- Yes, I remember that too.
- I remember that incident.
- And Ruth Gruber tells it very well in her book.
- I thought the meeting was over.
- So I walked out with the Germans.
- And when I got outside, Freddy Baum,
- who was our translator and my good advisor
- and friend at all times, he came to me
- and told me the blunder I had made.
- So consequently, I went back.
- And we explained to the Yugoslavs and the others
- there what had happened.
- But there was some feeling, of course,
- in the community about it.
- And the next day, I wrote a bulletin
- and sent it out to the residents explaining the mistake
- that I had made.
- I remember, I told them that I had come to the service
- being of a different religion, but wanting
- to worship a common God with them
- and that I didn't expect to find intolerance
- in religious worship in our community.
- And we should all respect each other's religious opinions
- and differences and not have this kind of thing
- happen again.
- I must tell you that some of the people I've
- talked to, because of their experience in Europe, where
- people in authority were always right,
- they were pleasantly surprised to see a man in authority
- make an apology.
- I suppose so.
- That was very different for them and made a big impression.
- You were a good representative for America.
- Eleanor Roosevelt paid a visit to the camp.
- Sir?
- Eleanor Roosevelt came to visit the camp in September.
- Eleanor Roosevelt. Tell me about her visit.
- Oh, Eleanor?
- Yes.
- Well, I got a call one day.
- And it was from Ms. Thompson, Tommy, her secretary
- and companion for many years, saying
- that Mrs. Roosevelt would like to come and to visit
- the shelter.
- And she came with the other Eleanor, Eleanor Morgenthau,
- her neighbor and very dear friend.
- And they spent the day touring the facilities.
- And there was a little informal meeting.
- We got a crowd together and a little entertainment.
- And she visited some of the apartments
- and made herself very much at home
- and friendly in a perfectly informal way, a thing
- she did so well.
- There was a-- what do you literary people call the--
- sequel to this.
- There was a sequel to this.
- A few weeks later, I was invited to go up
- to her home on the Hudson in New York
- to tell a group of her neighbors and friends
- a story about the refugees.
- And we had the picnic--
- chicken and watermelon-- out in the garden.
- Down at the other end of the garden
- was the great man himself in his favorite cloak
- and with his cigarette in the air as he was well known for.
- He paid no attention during all the proceedings and working
- on his papers.
- So we had a very pleasant visit up there.
- What was Eleanor's reaction to the refugees?
- She loved them.
- She loved everybody.
- And she was indignant, immediately,
- about the restrictions in the shelter, scolded me
- before she left about what the government was
- doing to keep these friendly people behind the fence.
- Do you think she scolded her husband later that night?
- I'm sure she did.
- She no doubt did.
- And I suspect that, as usual, he paid no attention to her.
- That's funny.
- It was a very important development
- when the kids were allowed to go to the Oswego public schools.
- Oh, yes.
- How did that come about?
- It wasn't supposed to be.
- It resulted, as all good things did at the shelter,
- from pressure from the refugees.
- They were starving for education.
- They demanded education.
- The Jewish agencies, again, came into the shelter
- and provided a good deal of education
- of one sort and another.
- But these youngsters, who expected
- to stay in the United States, wanted
- to be educated as Americans.
- And as a consequence, I applied a little pressure down
- in Washington and was authorized to negotiate with the school
- people in Oswego.
- And as a result, we worked out a system
- where the students would be given
- leave to go into the community, and attend the schools,
- and work for credits.
- And they did.
- And they did well.
- They got credits, yes.
- They did very well in school too.
- Oh, and sure they did.
- They got the honors.
- They led the classes in many respects.
- Did that make you proud?
- It was almost a reflection on you.
- Well, they were my kids.
- I cared for them.
- I loved them.
- Was it ironic that there were Nazi POWs in the area
- and that the government had brought in several hundred
- thousand Nazi POWs into the United States
- while here was the one group of 1,000 refugees?
- Yes.
- And the refugees were quite well aware of this.
- And this resulted in another pressure
- because the prisoners of war were
- allowed to go into the agricultural areas
- and help harvest the crops.
- There was a great labor shortage in agriculture.
- So there, again, we were able, after a certain time,
- to get permission for our workers
- to go outside and work in the orchards and the fields
- and get paid for it.
- So this, again, was a relaxation of the confinement
- and an extension of the people into the community.
- There was a wedding at the camp about two weeks
- after they arrived, Manya, the pretty blonde, and Ernest.
- But there were problems getting the OK to have the wedding.
- Do you remember that?
- Yes.
- It was no problem, simply a question of finding out
- what was the legalities were.
- Of course, it was a religious ceremony.
- But we simply registered them locally in Oswego
- to get their licenses and another precedent established.
- That must have been a joyous day,
- to come from hell in Europe and come and have a joyous wedding.
- It was very interesting and the first Jewish wedding
- I had been to.
- A rabbi performed the service under the traditional canopy.
- And after it was all over, there was
- dancing and the festivities, a lovely experience, yes.
- There were babies born at the camp also.
- Good many.
- Nature went on.
- And a question of legality again.
- Are they American citizens?
- It was debated.
- The point didn't arise.
- But it was generally assumed among our legal people
- that they immediately were citizens.
- And if the people had been sent back, by then
- it would have created a serious problem.
- How could you evict an American citizen
- born in the United States?
- But fortunately, that didn't arise.
- OK.
- He wants to listen too.
- [LAUGHS]
- He likes to be where we are all the time.
- He's used to be with company.
- We have a party here, the dog is all over.
- Oh, good.
- OK.
- OK.
- After the initial needs were taken care of,
- food and shelter, that's basically all the government
- wanted to provide.
- The Jewish agencies were a big help
- in getting other things to the camp?
- This is true.
- The administration didn't do a very good job of pre-planning
- on this thing.
- I came into it cold.
- The people in Dillon Myer's office
- had had a great deal of experience in this thing
- through the Japanese program.
- And they should have anticipated a lot of the problems
- we were faced with.
- My background has been in resettlement work
- even before that.
- And I think that if I had been present,
- we might have avoided a good many problems.
- At any rate, as you say the intention
- was to provide the minimum facilities.
- Fortunately, the Jewish agencies, the welfare agencies,
- Christian and Jewish, had a great deal of experience
- in this sort of thing.
- And they knew the needs.
- They knew the needs of the Jewish peoples.
- And they stepped in and spent a great deal of money.
- They sent skilled personnel.
- The ORT organization set up a machine shop
- for vocational training.
- Hadassah, I think, saw the open windows
- and immediately brought curtains to cover them.
- This sort of thing had happened in the medical field.
- Freddy Baum, who had peg legged his way across Roosevelt,
- across Europe, on a very primitive wooden leg
- got a new one.
- All such needs were met and well met
- by the Jewish agencies, field recreation
- and across the board.
- Work was the big problem at the camp from what I understand.
- Many of the people did not want to work
- doing the menial jobs that needed to be done
- around the camp, is that right?
- This was certainly a problem.
- It wasn't the big problem.
- The big problem was confinement, lack of liberty.
- When they were told they were coming to the United States
- as guests, they conceived themselves
- to be guests in the sense that they
- would be guests at a hotel, that they would be served and taken
- care of.
- They didn't like the menial jobs see.
- Garbage collection was a terrific problem.
- Coal hauling in the winter was another.
- Somehow it got done.
- It got done.
- We had to set up a rotation system
- so that people were required to do some of those jobs.
- They never got to the point of rebellion.
- But they never became happy about it either.
- How were the refugees accepted in Oswego?
- Was there much antisemitism or anti-refugee feeling?
- This fear of antisemitism was a constant with us,
- both when I was in shelter and after I left.
- We were all fearful that somehow we
- would create a new wave of antisemitism in the country.
- And the people of Oswego were extremely hospitable.
- They came to the fence the first day with candy and cigarettes
- to give the children and the young people through the fence.
- There never was a problem with the people.
- We tried to forestall that by creating a community
- committee of leading citizens in Oswego,
- including the educators and the publishers
- and the mayor and lawyers and whatnot.
- And so the community had a policy.
- And they tried to establish normal relations as far
- as we would permit them to.
- In December 1944, there was a special broadcast,
- Dorothy Thompson, the Christmas broadcast.
- Tell me about that.
- "Christmas and Freedom," they called it.
- I don't remember how that was set up.
- Dorothy Thompson, who was, of course,
- a noted radio figure in those times and it was her program.
- Mrs. Roosevelt moderated it from her apartment in New York.
- And I, in a similar capacity, at the shelter.
- Freddie Baum, as I remember, was really
- the master of ceremonies.
- And we recruited the best entertainers
- we had and put on a very fine Christmas program.
- Was Dorothy Thompson in Oswego or in New York?
- She was in New York.
- She didn't appear at Oswego.
- It must have been very exciting though.
- It was really self-produced.
- And she simply monitored it.
- So it appeared as an all refugee production.
- It was a very harsh winter.
- It was the worst the old timers could remember,
- the coldest and the deepest snow and the most prolonged
- bad weather.
- It was terrible.
- Terrible.
- Sometimes meals had to be brought
- to people who couldn't get out of their barracks.
- Oh, yes.
- A good deal of that.
- Some of the older people and some who were
- infirm and ill, of course, a great many.
- And on the coldest days, why nobody
- could leave their barracks.
- It was against the rules--
- against my rules to prepare food in the barracks.
- But nearly every apartment had a hot plate and closet
- with some food in it.
- Your whole style of administering the camp
- seems to have been fairly easygoing.
- You treated them like adults.
- I read in one of the books--
- I think it was Mrs. Sharon Lowenstein's very fine book--
- that I wasn't a very good administrator.
- My sympathy seemed to have been too much with the people.
- Is that accurate?
- I don't know whether it's good or bad.
- But at any rate, I think nothing bad
- happened at the shelter as a result of relaxed rules
- if people didn't take advantage of us very much.
- They found holes under the fence.
- But nobody got in trouble as a result of it.
- Friends of mine in New York called me up to tell me one day
- that Adam Munz and some of his friends from high school
- were down in New York having a little vacation.
- [LAUGHTER] It didn't bother me very much.
- Is it surprising or what that there were
- no real problems at the camp.
- No one escaped.
- No one got in trouble with the law.
- I suppose it is statistically surprising.
- In a two-year period, a certain percentage of 1,000 people
- should get into some kind of criminal troubles.
- There just weren't any.
- They were good people.
- And the opinion of the American people
- was very important to them.
- It affected their chances of staying in the United States.
- And I'm sure that they were telling
- each other this all the time.
- During that very harsh winter, there
- were two incidents that kind of plunged
- the camp into a group depression--
- the suicide and the coal accident.
- Yes.
- Tell me about the mood in the camp after the--
- Of the what?
- The mood in the camp of the people.
- The mood?
- Yeah.
- Well, people more qualified than I have interpreted that mood.
- We sent psychiatrists there to study the mood of the people.
- Some of them definitely were psychiatric cases
- as a result of their experience.
- In the literature and the commentaries
- it's reported as being quite ugly.
- Frankly, I was not aware that it was very ugly.
- I saw a group of people under restrictions,
- which were basically unfair and uncomfortable, performing
- rather heroically in these difficult circumstances
- and particularly during that terribly hard winter.
- There were rumors that they would
- be set free around Passover time in 1945.
- Was that a problem to quell rumors?
- I don't recognize it as a problem.
- It required a certain mechanism.
- We had to be alerted to these things.
- And usually, we were alerted to it
- by the refugee leaders themselves,
- either individually in the form of gossip
- or by one of the many committees.
- And usually, we would simply discuss it
- among the leadership of the shelter and of the refugees
- and accept the rationalization.
- And they would take it back to their people and explain it.
- And we didn't try, as an administration,
- to do a lot of explaining.
- We tried to keep the confidence of the people
- with whom we had good communications
- and to rely on them to have the good sense and ability
- to bring it back to their own peoples.
- I want to ask you about what must
- be a wonderful memory for you.
- When you attended the Passover meal
- and they started to dance around you, tell me about that?
- Oh, I don't remember that one particularly.
- We had so many fine parties.
- We had so many fine parties.
- And my family and I loved parties.
- I loved them.
- I liked to dance.
- I still do.
- One of the best things I learned from the refugees
- was to do the Hokey Pokey.
- Do you ever do the Hokey Pokey?
- [LAUGHS] So this Passover party was an outstanding one.
- We had another outstanding one--
- Oh, but they lifted you up on their shoulders
- and carried you around.
- Frankly, I'd forgotten this.
- I read about it in one of the books.
- And I thought, did this really happen?
- I'm not accustomed to being carried around
- on people's shoulders.
- [LAUGHS]
- They obviously--
- But that's a very happy memory, yes.
- The refugees in the camp obviously adored you
- for your manner with them.
- Well--
- That's a two-way street right?
- This is a case of Mary loving the lamb
- because the lamb love Mary.
- [LAUGHS]
- That's lovely.
- I like that.
- All the time that you were director of the camp,
- you seem to be uncomfortable enforcing the government
- regulations keeping them in.
- At the same time that it's your job
- to administer this internment camp--
- That's right.
- You hated the fact that they were being interned, it seems.
- We had security regulations.
- It was my job to enforce those regulations.
- And I don't think I ever told any refugee that I didn't
- approve of those regulations.
- It would have been disloyal for me to have done so.
- I was distressed and unhappy at the need for them.
- I didn't like them.
- In retrospect, I think they were terrible.
- And then you resigned in--
- you announced it in May--
- In May of '46 that would have been.
- '45.
- '45, May of '45.
- When you resigned that was because a group of refugees
- came to you and had a conversation with you.
- Tell me about that.
- They had sources of information, as good or better than ours.
- They often came to me and told me
- what the government is about to do before I knew it.
- The consensus at that moment among all of the government
- people was that every effort had been made to arrive at a policy
- to permit the refugees to stay in the United States,
- and the effort had failed.
- The Department of State, the Department of War, the Attorney
- General's Office were adamant that the original commitment
- of Franklin Roosevelt that the people would
- be returned after the war would be carried out.
- Ruth Gruber had information that this
- was likely to take place on the 30th of June
- when the War Relocation Board was to go out of existence.
- And it was with the awareness of this situation
- that a refugee committee came to me and said,
- this is the way it is and everything else has failed.
- Couldn't we organize a group on the outside
- of prominent citizens to plead our case with the public
- and with the government?
- It was a new idea.
- I said, let me think about it for a day or two.
- There was no suggestion at that point
- as to who might do such a thing.
- I consulted with a few of the Jewish leaders in New York
- and with one or two people in Washington,
- particularly with the Assistant Secretary of the Interior,
- Ickes' assistant, an old friend of mine from Denver, Colorado.
- His name was Oscar Chapman.
- He later became Undersecretary and then
- Secretary of the Interior, a very liberal man
- and a brilliant man.
- And we discussed how could this be done and who would do it.
- And he says, Joe, number one, he's got to be a Christian.
- If a Jew does this, you start antisemitism,
- and you never get anywhere.
- It has to be somebody who has identified with the problem.
- And who cares enough about the problem
- to do something about it.
- And Oscar said, I can only think of one person
- and that's Joe Smart.
- And I agreed.
- I thought that on all those scores
- that if anybody were to undertake
- the job with any possibility of success, it had to be me.
- And I thought it would have another effect
- that the mere fact of my resignation
- would have sufficient shock value that the government would
- pause and say, well, we won't send them
- back immediately because this would
- create too much of a scandal.
- And it--
- And it seemed to have had that effect.
- Dillon Myer told me that it had that effect.
- So I called the committee back and told them
- about my reaction.
- And that if they requested it, I would
- be willing to resign and undertake the mission.
- OK.
- Why don't we take--
- The dining room upstairs is very, very good.
- Oh, good.
- I was going to ask you for a recommendation on a restaurant.
- Well, if you like a very formal place, that's it.
- Sounds good.
- If you like to go out on the town,
- I'm not a very good person to ask.
- Formal and what else?
- OK.
- It's very normal.
- Eva suggest good places.
- OK, we're ready.
- OK.
- After you resigned, you went around
- and lined up 100 or so very prominent Americans
- to get behind you to help get freedom for the refugees.
- How did you do that and who did you get?
- Give me a quick list.
- Well, we formed an organization, called it the Friends
- of Fort Ontario Guest Refugees.
- Of the 100 or more people, I talked to perhaps 10
- personally, the rest of them by letter.
- They responded immediately and magnificently.
- You had quite a list of people.
- Yes.
- Hand me my notes there.
- Will you let me--
- let me give you a few of those names.
- I jotted down a few of these names--
- John Dewey, who was an educator and philosopher
- in those days, David Dubinsky, who
- was head of the Ladies' Garment Makers Union, Arthur Garfield
- Hays and Roger Baldwin of the American Civil Liberties Union,
- Governor Lehman of New York, Bishop Francis J. McConnell,
- an Episcopalian, Justine Wise Polier,
- who was the daughter of Stephen S. Wise, a great Jewish leader,
- who did not become a member, but who gave me a lot of advice.
- Albert Einstein was on the list, right?
- Pardon me?
- Albert Einstein?
- Albert Einstein was there.
- I didn't note his name.
- Eleanor Roosevelt.
- And Raymond Gram Swing, who was the Walter Cronkite of his day,
- he was there.
- We tried to get people who influenced opinion.
- William O'Dwyer, who had been head of the War Refugee Board,
- when he resigned, he immediately became
- a member of our committee.
- And of course, Governor Dewey, formerly of New York
- and a Republican candidate for the president.
- He thought it might get him some votes.
- He joined the committee--
- people like this.
- Now, you wanted to keep the Fort Ontario refugee
- question separate from the larger refugee issue.
- But some of the Jewish agencies, like the National Refugee
- Service, they wanted to walk carefully.
- They thought their efforts might undermine the wider effort.
- This is true.
- They were more conscious of these factors than I was.
- My duty was to the Fort Ontario group.
- Their duty was to thousands of refugees all over the world
- and to several thousand in the United States
- who were here illegally or in a questionable status.
- And they did fear that calling attention to this group
- might arouse antisemitism and might arouse anti-immigration,
- which also was easy to be a problem politically
- in the United States.
- So I became very sensitive to these problems through them
- and tried to conduct our campaign in such a way
- that it would not have those effects.
- I see that it could very well have had a bad effect.
- But fortunately, it did not.
- But I was free to do things that they felt they could not do.
- And I think we had mutual respect
- in view of that situation.
- I hope that they were happy that I was able to do things
- that they couldn't do.
- Give me a quick list of what you did,
- who you talked to, whose door you knocked on, who you said,
- let them in already.
- Who did you talk to?
- Well, number one, we set out to create public opinion.
- We wanted to exert as rapidly as we
- could a great public pressure on the administration.
- Don't send these people back or you'll
- be in trouble with the public.
- Do treat them with compassion.
- Find a solution that doesn't require to be sent them back.
- So the newspapers, the press, the TV, the radio--
- there was no TV--
- the campaign began there and among agencies,
- small and large.
- Ruth Gruber, in her book, tells about a meeting
- that was held with Secretary Morgenthau, who
- felt committed, as to Roosevelt's commitment,
- that they had to go back.
- She says, the only thing to do is
- to go to the leaders of Congress and see if there isn't a way
- to handle this.
- Ultimately, this was the course that I took.
- I went to the president of the Senate,
- the Speaker of the House.
- I had influential people arrange these interviews for me--
- Senator Russell, the immigration committee--
- and explained the situation to them.
- I had been told by my friend, Oscar Chapman,
- in Washington that the president was
- inclined to sign an executive order using the immigration
- process to let the people come in.
- But he said, the president is afraid that if he does this,
- he's going to be accused in Congress
- and will open up a whole bag of troubles
- for refugees in general.
- And he says, he feels that he has
- to be assured that if he takes this action,
- he will not be criticized in Congress.
- So this was the reason that I went
- to the Congressional leaders.
- Some of the Democratic leaders, as I've mentioned,
- thought that the refugees should be sent back.
- But he says, if you can work this thing out in this way,
- we'll go along.
- I sent this message back to the president through my roots
- up through Secretary Ickes and was told--
- Ickes told Chapman, he says, well, tell Joe Smart,
- this is all well, but what about Senator Taft?
- Senator Taft, of course, was Mr. Republican.
- And I went to Senator Taft.
- And he heard me out.
- And he said, Mr. Smart, you can assure Secretary Ickes
- that if the president signs the executive order,
- and if there is any opposition from the Congress,
- I will take the floor of the Senate to defend his action.
- So you lined up Senator Taft on your side?
- Yes, I lined up Senator Taft.
- And well, there were a great many factors
- which led to the president's decision.
- I felt then that this was probably the decisive one,
- gave him the assurance that he at least
- would not have political opposition for doing so.
- Is that coming through on the tape?
- Yeah, a little.
- OK.
- Just a little.
- Is that it?
- No, I have another question for you if you don't mind.
- Yeah, I could hear it.
- I didn't overdo that, did I?
- No, that was great.
- That was fine.
- The mood of the country was a problem for Truman--
- not only the possible antisemitism,
- but the restrictionist attitude, right?
- Tell me about that.
- A great many people in the United States
- were opposed to any immigration at all.
- They felt that foreigners had been swarming in and taking
- jobs from American workers.
- And there was a great deal of opinion
- in favor of restricting all immigration, and particularly
- of displaced persons from Europe who were likely to come here
- without any resources or money and be
- a drain on our resources.
- Now, 40-some-odd years later, the former refugees have become
- tremendous successes, many of them--
- That's true.
- --and have made a very significant contribution
- to American society.
- I think so.
- What message does that send?
- Well, I guess the same message that appears
- on the Statue of Liberty.
- I forget.
- I can't quote it, but it says, welcome
- the distress of all companies because they
- enrich our society.
- They contribute.
- Whether down the road there comes a point where that would
- fail to happen, I don't know.
- But I think that there's still room
- in America for the kind of people
- that we brought from Fort Ontario, at least.
- How should Fort Ontario be judged by history?
- By whom?
- By history.
- Is it a triumph for 1,000 people?
- Or is it a sign of a failed policy?
- I don't think it was significant in any way as of that time.
- The refugees really were not in need
- at the point at which they were brought over here.
- They had been earlier.
- Some of them had been in the concentration camps.
- But they were in Italy, and free,
- and getting along fairly well.
- As an expression of Roosevelt's hope
- that it would help solve the total refugee problem,
- it did not.
- And so it became a nuisance, rather than an expression
- of good government policy.
- Let me ask you this.
- Let's go back to the camp.
- When you first met the refugees, I mean,
- people had been reading in the newspapers about what
- was happening in Europe.
- But here, you were one of the first Americans
- to see and to talk to people who had suffered.
- What was that like for you?
- To me?
- Yeah.
- Well, they weren't a very prepossessing group
- as they came off that train.
- A good many of them stood in all the clothes
- that they owned, mostly shirts and shorts that time of year.
- I knew, of course, from the list that they were very
- superior people among them.
- But you couldn't tell by looking at them.
- They were pretty rag-tag-looking outfit.
- But there were some surprising contrasts.
- One of these men who was dressed in shirts and shorts
- and looked very on the script, he carried only a violin case.
- It turned out that this case contained a Guarnerius
- violin that was worth $50,000.
- I took it to the Brooklyn Museum and had it appraised for him.
- So some of them had a few resources.
- It must have been very emotional to hear
- some of their horror stories of what happened to them.
- Oh, yes.
- Yes.
- Of course, Ruth Gruber was the one
- who had this fine experience, really.
- She came with them on the boat.
- And she knew them as persons.
- And I knew them, at first, only as a problem.
- Very good.
- What a great interview.
- Terrific.
- Stay where you are for just a moment.
- If you will, Steve, get a two shot from behind.
- Right.
- I hope my voice comes through.
- I've lost it now, you see.
- I can hardly talk.
- All of the former refugees really
- speak very highly of you.
- And it's funny that you talk about Adam
- slipping under the fence because he told me about that too.
- He said that the lure of the bright lights in New York
- was just too much.
- He had to go.
- Why don't you take a shot of that bust?
- I will.
- You will?
- I'd like very much if you could show that.
- Can you?
- Yes, we will.
- Adam's picture.
- I hope he would like to have it shown.
- You've had such a full life.
- How do you measure, how do you view the Oswego experience
- for you in terms of your life?
- You've done so many things.
- Is Oswego among the most important in your life?
- As government jobs go, no, it was not an important job.
- My job in Peru was more important.
- In the Japanese program, I was--
- we had 10 shelters.
- Five of them were under my supervision.
- There are about 50,000 people in five camps.
- I was regional director in Denver.
- And then, when we started to disperse the Japanese,
- I went into Washington as assistant national director.
- Those are bigger jobs.
- I had been assistant national director of the Resettlement
- Administration earlier.
- And then after Fort Ontario, I established as--
- set up another economic aid program
- in Indonesia, which in the scale was more important.
- As a personal experience?
- But as a personal experience, the most important I ever had.
- Really?
- Yes.
- Wow.
- Yes.
- Well, great.
- Wonderful.
- OK, got sound.
- Yeah.
- Tell me about the bust here.
- Well, this bust was made and presented to me
- by Miriam Sonnenberg.
- I think she was German.
- She had had quite a reputation in Europe as an artist.
- And after she left the shelter, she
- became established in New York and gained quite a reputation
- there, I understand.
- This little cartoon up here was made
- by another of the residents.
- His name was Zipser.
- He had me making a speech to the assemblage.
- Very good.
- Terrific.
- Very good.
There is no transcript available for this track
Overview
- Interviewee
- Joseph H. Smart
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of WXXI-TV
Physical Details
- Language
- English
- Genre/Form
- Documentary films.
- Extent
-
4 videocassettes (U-Matic) : sound, color ; 3/4 in..
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- Restrictions on use. Excerpts of the interviews may be used for all on-site not-for-profit purposes to the extent of fair-use. Permission must be granted by the interviewees for any uses beyond fair-use including, but not limited to, performance in a public program, an off-site exhibition; transmission, display, or performance on the internet; and any reproduction or distribution for third party use.
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)--Personal narratives. Holocaust survivors--United States.
- Personal Name
- Smart, Joseph H.
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- The interview with Joe Smart was conducted by Paul Lewis for WXXI's documentary Safe Haven. The film documents the stories of some of the 982 Holocaust survivors, from 18 countries, who were interned at the Fort Ontario Army Camp in Oswego, NY for 18 months from August 1944 to December 1946. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum received the extant copies of the interview in July 1991.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 08:09:19
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn512581
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Transcripts (3)
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Also in Oral histories from the WXXI, Channel 21 (Rochester) collection
The interviews document the stories of some of the 982 Holocaust survivors, from 18 countries, whom were interned at the Fort Ontario Army Camp in Oswego, NY for 18 months from August 1944 to December 1946.
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