sources German American Interee Coalition
Gloucester City, New Jersey Internment Facility
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| Female internees at Gloucester City dancing for Justice Department audience in 1943, reportedly hoping to win their release. Note fence around facility. National Archives Photo. |
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The US Immigration Station which held detainees near Gloucester City, New Jersey was a large, converted Victorian house on South King Street, in an industrial area across the Delaware River from Philadelphia. It held male and female detainees temporarily who were on their way to other more permanent facilities. Many women, however, were held for extended time periods. The facility held approximately 50 individuals at a time. Reports indicate that the internees were reasonably well cared for and liked the officer in charge very much. Pictured above is a field day in which the internees performed German songs and folk dances for DoJ officials, many original compositions. Fox, Stephen, Fear Itself: Inside the FBI Roundup of German Americans during World War II, iUniverse 2005, p. 170-171. \”Women were issued a pair of shoes and a dress, men shoes and work pants, plus two free packs of cigarettes each week for both. Internees could earn 80 cents a day making handicrafts and were allowed to keep up to ten dollars at a time. Anything more was held in an account. … As in all camps, all internees were entitled to regular visitors, although strict rules of nondiscussion and message censorship applied.\” Arnold Krammer, Undue Process: The Untold Story of America’s German Alien Internees, Rowman and Littlefield, 1997, p. 86-87. One craft item the women keep for themselves: a small leaf with two acorns. The back of the pin had a tag with the wearer’s date of arrest with a blank for the date of release. Fox, Fear Itself, p.171.
Although a model camp, Internees tell of much anguish, however at the camp because many of the women were mothers of young children. According to Stephen Fox, in his book, Fear Itself, one internee wrote a group letter to Attorney General Francis Biddle, begging him to release the women. She wrote that despite the good care they received, the \”’sudden and unexpected separation’ from families, their removal from useful occupation, and the suspicion cast on their characters and reputations had caused a general decline in the women’s health.\” DoJ’s response was that the married women apply for transfer to the family camp. Fox, Fear Itself, p. 171. (See also: the Crystal City Internment Camp section above.) Another example of the difficulties of mothers and children being separated is the story of this then 9-year old son of a former internee. He speaks bitterly of the fact that he had to be placed in an orphanage while his mother was interned because his father could not work and care for him.
The Gloucester City facility has been renovated and is now the headquarters of Holt Oversight and Logistical Technologies seen above.
The Philadelphia station
At Philadelphia $100,000 has been spent by the Government in acquiring a site for an immigration station. This sum bought an estate, including a house, in Gloucester, N. J. The residence is used as an administration building. One hundred thousand dollars more has been spent on the construction of a detention station; $100,000 more has gone to construct a wharf which will contain examination rooms for immigrants, who must all be barged there by the steamship companies. An appropriation of $55,000 is still unspent; $23,000 more has been asked of Congress. This $88,000 will suffice to shed the immigrant wharf. There is no present intention of applying for a government appropriation for the construction of a hospital. In 1914 it seems likely that within two years the Philadelphia Immigrant Station will be in complete operation. It is many years since the first active steps were taken towards its building. source Steamships.org
Properties Associated with Detention
source WW II Interment Camps
Temporary Detention Stations
Immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Justice Department began arresting \”dangerous\” enemy aliens residing in the United States.104 Approximately 2,000 Issei were held
in temporary detention stations, operated by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) from December 7, 1941 until late January of 1942. Most were long-time U.S. residents,
prohibited by law from becoming citizens. Many of the language teachers, clergy, and newspaper editors targeted for arrest were leaders in their communities.
According to the INS, enemy aliens were held at 20 temporary detention facilities leased or borrowed from other federal agencies: Chicago, Illinois; Pittsburgh and Nanticoke, Pennsylvania;
Tampa and Miami, Florida; Syracuse and Niagara Falls, New York; Cleveland and Cincinnati, Ohio; Houston, Texas; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri; Salt Lake
City, Utah; Portland, Oregon; St. Paul, Minnesota; Tujunga (Tuna Canyon) and Los Angeles (Terminal Island), California; Hartford, Connecticut; and Baltimore, Maryland. Eight existing
INS detention facilities held what may have been a significant number of enemy aliens: San Francisco, San Pedro, and San Ysidro, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Detroit, Michigan;
Gloucester City, New Jersey; Ellis Island, New York; and Seattle, Washington.105
105 According to the INS History, Genealogy, and Education website (uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/history/eacamps):
\”Nearly all INS stations had some detention space for routine use during World War II. Districts also had standing
contracts with local, state, or Federal agencies for the routine or occasional use of additional detention space. Any or
all of these facilities might have held an alien classified as an enemy alien at one time or another during World War
II.\”
![](\"http://www.gaic.info/images_camps/tempstations/glouces_02.jpg\")