The case involves the Hoffman family of Industrial City, Wisconsin. Herman (age 48) and his wife Bertha (age 39) had three children, Gottfried (age 14); Edela (age 11); and Wolfgany (age 10). Herman, Bertha and Gottfried were born in Germany and were resident aliens, the two youngest children were born in America and were citizens.

The case began when Herman, who was interned in the Stringtown, Oklahoma camp, wrote to the Swiss Legation pleading for their intervention on behalf of his wife and three children, who were still living in their home in Industrial City. (The Swiss Legation was the official diplomatic liaison for German citizens, especially those wanting to repatriate to Germany.) Herman told the Legation: "I was arrested as Alien Enemy on January 10, 1942, in Industrial City, where I worked as Baker. . . I was interned in Camp McCoy, Wisc. and then transferred to Camp Stringtown, Oklahoma, on June 18th, 1942. On May 15th, 1942, I notified your office that I would like to be repatriated." But that pending request was not the reason for Herman's new letter, dated June 22, 1942. "Due to unfortunate circumstances I am forced to ask you for financial aid for my family," he wrote. After recounting some of the sequence of events quoted above, he continued: "I had a little money saved up and borrowed all I could on my life insurance. This money is totally used up and my wife is unable to support the family with 3 children." ⁽¹⁾

The Swiss Legation referred Mr. Hoffman's letter to the Social Security Board, who passed it on to the Wisconsin State Welfare Department, where a caseworker began exploring help for the family under the ASEAO program. The caseworker paid her first visit to the family on July 15, 1942. Mrs. Hoffman expressed her confusion over what had happened to her husband. In the words of the caseworker:

she told us how distressed she has been since [Mr. Hoffman] left. She claims his departure from the home was a great blow to her and that to this time she can not understand fully why he was taken. She feels certain that if he had completed his naturalization in this country he would still be here. For several months after [Mr. Hoffman] left the home [Mrs. Hoffman] stated she had hoped he would return but now feels convinced that he is interned for the duration of the war. ⁽²⁾

A week later, on a second site visit, Mrs. Hoffman agreed to apply for assistance. Her monthly expenses--which were projected to increase once the family was evicted from the public housing project, as was anticipated--were calculated to be $91.50 while the family income was $79.50, which was derived from occasional piano lessons taught by Mrs. Hoffman and from young Gottfried's paper route.

Mrs. Hoffman admitted the family had been getting by on food borrowed from friends and that the borrowing had gone on so long that she was ashamed to meet some of her friends. Eventually, a claim was taken and the caseworker settled on a monthly grant to the family of $50. At a meeting shortly after her benefits began, the caseworker noted that Mrs. Hoffman was looking healthier than previously, noting in the file: "When we remarked about this she seemed pleased. She stated that actually she is feeling better. She believes she is not so worried as she was at first and she is certain that her general condition and outlook on life will improve . . ." ⁽³⁾

Mrs. Hoffman also revealed to her caseworker something of the internal fractures in the marriage. Mr. Hoffman had long been desirous of returning to Germany, believing he could make a better livelihood there, while Mrs. Hoffman was adamant that she wanted their children to grow up and be educated in America. She also confessed that her husband was involved with undesirable people in unspecified pro-German organizations in Industrial City, and that this involvement had long worried her and she had tried in vain to get her husband to disassociate himself from these elements. She lamented having to repeatedly reassure their children that their father was not a spy and that he had committed no crimes, "otherwise he would have been executed in the same way the Nazi Saboteurs were recently executed." ⁽⁴⁾

In late November Mrs. Hoffman's closest friend, Mrs. Wachter, appeared in the welfare office to inform the caseworker that Mrs. Hoffman had recently suffered a heart attack and was confined to bed, with unpaid medical expenses. She also revealed that everything was not as it seemed--that her friend Mrs. Hoffman was keeping up a brave front but that she was worried sick over her situation, and was particularly ashamed over having to rely on relief. The caseworker sought to reassure her on this last point:

We explained to Mrs. W. the source of the money and pointed out to her that actually it was not in the same category as unemployment relief but a special grant given by the Federal Government for the protection of families of interned men; that it was the aim of the Government to uphold the family standard and family solidarity during this period of duress. ⁽⁵⁾

In a subsequent contact with Mrs. Hoffman's doctor it turned out that she had not in fact suffered a heart attack, but rather what the doctor characterized as a "neurotic flare-up," for which he was prescribing sedatives. The doctor admitted he believed the problem was caused by the stress of her situation.

When the caseworker visited the home in early December Mrs. Hoffman was found to be pale and depressed and the house, that had previously been spotless and orderly, was now in evident disarray. Mrs. Hoffman told the caseworker she was excessively worried because she had not heard from her husband in some months and feared something terrible had happened. Mrs. Hoffman expressed an acute loneliness, stating that not only did her American neighbors reject her and the children because they viewed them as German spies, but that their German friends had been shunning them as well, for the opposite suspicion, thinking they must be spies for the American government otherwise they would not still be able to be living in a public housing project. The caseworker agreed to boost the family stipend by $40 for the month of January 1943 to reflect Mrs. Hoffman's loss of work due to her illness and she arranged for Mrs. Hoffman to receive her prescriptions at the nearby University Hospital.

Throughout the period of the caseworker's efforts on behalf of the Hoffman family, Mrs. Hoffman's health was up and down, and the caseworker had to frequently badger her into seeking medical attention, as she had a morbid fear of doctors and apparently had not seen one since leaving Germany, until she started receiving the ASEAO-funded care. Sometimes the children would be sick--such as an occasion when Gottfried broke out with large boils around his groin--and the caseworker would have to overcome Mrs. Hoffman's resistance to get treatment for the children.

In February 1943 the caseworker raised with Mrs. Hoffman the topic of the family volunteering to relocate to the internment camp to rejoin her husband. This voluntary reunification was a common procedure in many of the internments and at this time the government was canvassing for interest. Mrs. Hoffman adamantly refused any such suggestion. She said her oldest son had already told her he would not go and would leave home instead. And she expressed her unwillingness to place her children in the camp atmosphere because she feared her husband's associations, that were now even stronger in the forced closeness of the camp, would influence her children negatively, as they had done her husband.

Two months later the issue of family reunification was formally raised when the welfare department received an application, completed by Mr. Hoffman, requesting voluntary internment of his wife and children. ⁽⁶⁾ Mrs. Hoffman again refused the suggestion, and a notice was sent to her on July 17th officially informing her of the denial of "her" request for a voluntary internment. A copy of the letter went to Mr. Hoffman, who filed an appeal, ostensibly on his wife's behalf, alleging that recent changes in her circumstances should lead them to reconsider. By July she had been evicted from her apartment and had no stable living situation, and besides, Mr. Hoffman told the authorities, "Mrs. Hoffman's expressions in her mail do not sound very coherent I have reason to fear the worst." He then closed with a challenge to the government's stated policy:

It has repeatedly been stated that it is the aim of the Government of the United States to unite families in all worthy cases, I trust that your office will reinvestigate the matter and that we will be reunited at a family camp at the earliest possible moment. ⁽⁷⁾

The INS investigated Mr. Hoffman's appeal, and in a report by the welfare office in September 1943 the office indicated in no uncertain terms that Mrs. Hoffman, while desiring to be reunited with her husband, would in no instance agree to a voluntary internment nor to repatriation, even if this decision meant continued separation. At this time, the welfare office reported, Mrs. Hoffman was in settled accommodations and her monthly stipend was $100.35. ⁽⁸⁾

There were other ups-and-downs. Gottfried had to abandon his paper route when the family was evicted from the housing project. Mrs. Hoffman's health was unstable. In August 1943 Mr. Hoffman wrote her an angry letter from camp suggesting that if she was unwilling to join him in internment that she might as well get a divorce. When the family finally found permanent quarters, Mrs. Hoffman asked that the truck from the county agency not deliver their furniture because then the neighbors would know she was on aid. Toward the end of the 1943 some fellow internees from Herman's camp returned home, briefly raising hopes for Herman's release. But his insistence on being repatriated, with or without his family, apparently blocked any prospect of his release.

As the months rolled on, Mrs. Hoffman became increasingly critical of her husband and their relationship and self-consciously more assertive of her own independence. She began to question her cultural role as a proper German house Frau, subservient to her husband in the public sphere and the private sphere. She repeatedly expressed the idea that her husband was not too smart and she should have been more assertive in blocking his unwholesome activities. She also had begun to wonder, she confided, about his mental competence, but did not want to say so formally for fear of worsening his circumstances in the camp. She seemed to be making some kind of mental transition to the idea of life without her husband.

On a day in early January 1944, as the caseworker was talking with her, the postman rang with a letter from her husband, in which he announced he had irrevocably decided to return to Germany. Mrs. Hoffman wept openly and anguished about his apparent decision. But as it happened, the next month Herman changed his mind and filed a new appeal for his release to his family. This new appeal reignited Mrs. Hoffman's hopes of a happy outcome, which for her was for the family to be reunited in their own home somewhere in America.

The caseworker's notes follow the Hoffmans through April 1944, by which time the family was receiving $125.10 per month from the ASEAO program. As the caseworker closed out the Hoffman file, Mrs. Hoffman's hopes were ascending.

Most of what happened to Mrs. Hoffman and her children during the trauma of internment was some of the inevitable damage done to human relationships and family units by the forced separation of internment. This damage, no one could ameliorate. But in the Hoffman's story there is a small thread of economic security, a lifeline for the family, in the form of monthly cash benefits, medical care, relocation assistance, and the regular presence of a concerned caseworker. This economic lifeline was the goal and achievement of the ASEAO program.

1. County Agency, caseworker report, files of the SSB, Bureau of Public Assistance, Master File of Civilian War Assistance to Enemy Aliens, 1940-1948, box 8.

2. Ibid., pg. 1.

3. ibid., pg. 7.

4. ibid., pg. 6.

5. ibid., pg. 9.

6. This would, perhaps not entirely incidentally, likely have involved a movement of Mr. Hoffman out of the Stringtown camp into one of the camps reserved for families, such as the one at Crystal City, Texas.

7. Letter from Herman Hoffman to Mr. W.F.M., Immigration and Naturalization Service, Boston, Mass., dated July 26, 1943. County Agency, caseworker report, files of the SSB, Bureau of Public Assistance, Master File of Civilian War Assistance to Enemy Aliens, 1940-1948, box 8.