Behind the Headlines

Today’s column was written by a University of Washington student who left Germany for London in 1939 and who has been in the United States 18 months.

by RALPH FREEDMAN

War is a hazardous business. There are all kind of wars. Wars for small things, and wars for great ideals. Right now, we are fighting a war to the finish — not for lofty ideals but for our very existence. We are all sitting on the same bandwagon. You may call it a monstrous tank charging ahead. All the allied nations cluster around it, and though one may disagree with the other on various points, they need each other and it is a good thing, this tank-bandwagon.
In the beginning there was only England and France. Then France dropped off the bandwagon and somersaulted behind the remnants of her Maginot line. She was subdued and (word illegible – disabled? divided?). Soon many others took her place. The Czechs and the Poles, the Norwegians and the Dutch. Now Uncle Sam has mounted the wagon and is doing his part.
The bandwagon did not start up in 1939. It has been rolling through Central Europe for quite a while. Its first seats were taken by those refugees who later sought the sanctuary of the United States to find peace and rest from Nazi persecution. They came because of their deep hatred of Hitler and all he stands for.
I Am One
I am one of these people. I fled Germany, barely escaping Nazi imprisonment. I sought the freedom of England, but when France fell in 1940, I was classified as an Enemy Alien. I was considered an enemy of England though I probably hated Nazism more violently than any man on the London streets. When I crossed the border from Quebec to Maine, I saw the Stars and Stripes fluttering from a high building. I was free again.
When war was declared on December 7th, 1941, I tried to enlist with many other Americans. I was not accepted. Later I was required to register as an enemy alien. I thought of days gone by in England but I have never vowed allegience to England. I never confirmed by oath my desire to become a British citizen.
A pending government decree would oust all enemy aliens from the vital Puget Sound area. Since I and many hundreds with me are registered as “enemy aliens,” we will also be affected.
We are not so much concerned with the inconvenience which this act would involve, as with the disillusiionment and deep disappointment it wrings.
Our Right to Fight
America invented the Statue of Liberty. This symbol we are called to defend. The oppressed people and peoples of Europe came here to find their haven of peace. The Irish, and the Scotch-Irish, and the Scotch, and the Poles, and the Slavs, and the Austro-Hungarians.
We have the misfortune of turning up rather late in the history of this country. We have the misfortune of speaking as a mother-tongue the language of Hitler and his Gestapo. I did not select my language before my birth, nor did any of those who share my fate.
Americans remember Pearl Harbor. We also remember thousands of our unfortunate brothers and sisters who were dumped into freight-cars and transported to the disease-infested ghettos of Poland. We who suffered Hitler’s tyranny have as much right to fight him as any other member of the oppressed nations.
We do not whine and cry for mercy. We do not want to be endured for mercy’s sake. We want to play an active part in the defense of this country which we love with the deep fervency of the stray wanderer who has finally reached his port.
Hate Hitler, Too
This week, I passed my physical examination for the United States army. Does that mean I may fight for this country while my parents are being labeled as “enemy aliens”?
To be called an “enemy” of this democracy is equal to being called a Nazi. We most indignantly object to being called Nazis. If Hitler or his Japanese henchmen were to arrive at these shores we would be the first to suffer under their heels. France is a vivid example.
If this area were to be evacuated for reasons of national defense, I doubt if any of us would waver a second to take part in such a general program. But we do feel that a grave injustice would be done to us, if we were forced out of this area because of our alleged danger to the security of this country.
And what will await us further inland? How will they receive us east of the mountains, we who were evacuated because we were supposedly hostile to this country’s war effort? We have a long path of wendering behind us.
We watched the growth of Hitler and we know his strength and his weakness. Above all we know his viciousness, and we hate him, his stystem and his people who applaud him wholeheartedly.
Americans, we were on the bandwagon before you. Now that you have joined us, don’t throw us overboard.