被送往克里斯特爾城的那些日本人

The American government made no secret of the factthat it had rounded up Japanese residents of thiscountry, even if they had been born here, and keptthem in detention camps during World War II. Atfirst glance, “The Train to Crystal City” appears tobe about some version of that story, since thepeople depicted on its cover are Asian and some arebeing transported somewhere. But the facts JanJarboe Russell has unveiled are much thornier, morecomplex and terrible. The tale they tell is almostmore than her mind-boggling but awkwardlyorganized book can handle.

美國政府從不諱言“二戰(zhàn)”期間曾經(jīng)集中美國的日本居民，把他們關(guān)進(jìn)拘留營的事實(shí)——即使這些居民是在美國出生。乍一看，《開往克里斯特爾城的火車》(The Train to Crystal City)似乎同樣講述了這個故事，因?yàn)榉饷嫔系娜宋锸莵喼奕?，有些正被送往別處。但是簡·賈博·拉塞爾(Jan Jarboe Russell)在本書中揭露的事實(shí)更棘手、更復(fù)雜、更可怕。這本書發(fā)人深省，但卻有失條理，幾乎已經(jīng)無法駕馭書中人物們所講述的故事。

 

 

Forty years ago, as an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin, she was first told bya Japanese-American professor about the family internment camp at Crystal City, insouthwestern Texas. During and after the war, it housed not only Japanese “detainees,” whowere for all practical purposes prisoners, but also many Germans and a few Italians. TheGermans loom large in this book, but the Italians play virtually no role.

40年前，拉塞爾在得克薩斯大學(xué)奧斯汀分校讀本科時，第一次聽一位日裔美國教授講起得克薩斯州西南部克里斯特爾城的家庭俘虜收容所。“二戰(zhàn)”期間和戰(zhàn)后，這里不僅關(guān)押著日裔“政治犯”——他們實(shí)際上被當(dāng)作囚犯對待——還關(guān)押著很多德裔和幾個意大利裔人。這本書突出講述了那些德裔的故事，但是幾乎沒提那幾個意大利人。

Over time she learned that here were also people of Japanese descent who had been secretlykidnapped. At the request of the Roosevelt administration, the Japanese had also beenspirited away from cooperating Latin American countries, with an especially large contingentfrom Peru. Many spoke neither Japanese nor English and had no connection to the UnitedStates. They were being held not as spies but for a more covert purpose: to be used as chitsin a hostage exchange program once the war was over.

后來她得知，這里還有一些被秘密綁架的日裔。應(yīng)羅斯福政府要求，一些與美國合作的拉美國家偷偷拐走了一些日裔，從秘魯綁架的人數(shù)尤為眾多。這些人中，很多人既不會說日語，也不會說英語，與美國沒有任何關(guān)系。他們不是作為間諜被拘留，而是為了一個更隱秘的目的：用作戰(zhàn)后人質(zhì)交換的籌碼。

Perhaps Ms. Russell’s jaw dropped as she got wind of each new part of this. Yours certainly will.But she has doggedly captured the awful intricacies that such a plan wrought, not only on thepeople who were uprooted but on the officials charged with handling them. No one had givenmuch thought to how Crystal City would mix such different population groups; to how pro-Nazi Germans would get along with American citizens of German descent who identified asGermany’s enemies; to Japanese households who could not find any of the staples of their dietin this particular snake-and-scorpion-rich Texas region. Even the plan to enable tofu-makingin Texas, at a time when it was hardly possible to order supplies from Japan, provides Ms.Russell with an interesting little story.

拉塞爾每聽到一個新情況，可能都會驚得瞠目結(jié)舌。你肯定也是這種反應(yīng)。不過，她還是頑強(qiáng)地描述了這個計劃造成的可怕的、復(fù)雜的影響——不僅是對那些被迫背井離鄉(xiāng)的人，還包括對那些負(fù)責(zé)處理他們的官員。沒人細(xì)想過，克里斯特爾城如何融合這些背景如此不同的人;支持納粹的德國人如何與以德國為敵的德裔美國人相處;得克薩斯州的這個地區(qū)蛇蝎橫行，日本家庭找不到自己飲食中的任何主要食材。當(dāng)時，從日本訂購供給品幾乎是不可能的，所以出現(xiàn)了一個讓得克薩斯州能做豆腐的計劃，這也給拉塞爾提供了一個有趣的小故事。

She got much of her information from more than 50 surviving Crystal City prisoners whosememories she tapped. This was a place for families, after all. And even though the primarydetainee was usually a man, his wife and children willingly went with him — if they could evenlearn where he had been taken. The book tells of men who were seized in the days after theJapanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the long months and years it took for their families to findout if they were dead or alive, let alone learn where they had been relocated. Many intervieweesprovide child’s-eye descriptions of what the long, strange journey to their unknown new homewas like.

她的很多信息來自在世的50多名克里斯特爾城囚犯，她打開了他們記憶的閘門。畢竟，那是一個拘留家庭的地方。盡管主囚犯通常是個男人，但他的妻兒愿意跟他一起走——如果他們能打聽到他被抓到哪兒的話。這本書講述了在日軍襲擊珍珠港之后幾天內(nèi)被抓的一些男人的故事。他們的家人在其后漫長的幾個月，乃至幾年里打聽他是否還活著，他們被送到了哪里更是不得而知。很多受訪者當(dāng)年還是孩子，他們用兒童的眼光描述了通往未知新家的漫長、奇怪的旅程。

Although they had no way of knowing it at the time, for these people Crystal City would becomethe closest thing many of them had to a home for a long time. The camp operated until 1948 —three years after the war had ended — and its residents continued to be policed and guarded.Nobody quite knew where to send them.

他們當(dāng)時絕不會想到，克里斯特爾城會在很長一段時間里成為最接近家的地方。這個拘留營一直運(yùn)營到1948年——那時“二戰(zhàn)”已結(jié)束三年——之后這里的居民繼續(xù)被監(jiān)督、看管。沒人確切地知道要把他們送到哪里。

Red-haired Ingrid Eiserloh, a first-generation American of German descent, had been born inNew York and grown up in Strongsville, Ohio, the place she considered home. But a blanketpolicy of postwar “repatriation” meant shipping Ingrid, her parents and young siblings topostwar Germany, where they would endure near-starvation and have no set survival plan;Ingrid would also have to deal with the crude attentions of American G.I.s. The book givesabundant credit to such American officials as Earl G. Harrison, a onetime commissioner of theImmigration and Naturalization Service. He was in charge of overseeing Crystal City andunderstood the additional, superfluous cruelty that came with this postwar treatment. Butthe unyielding anti-immigrant attitude that the United States applied to many Jews freed fromconcentration camps also applied to Crystal City’s unwanted population.

紅頭發(fā)的英格麗德·艾澤洛(Ingrid Eiserloh)是第一代德裔美國人，她在紐約出生，在俄亥俄州的斯特朗威爾長大，她視后者為家鄉(xiāng)。但是戰(zhàn)后“遣送回國”的通用政策把英格麗德，以及她的父母、弟妹們送回了戰(zhàn)后的德國，他們沒有任何固定的謀生計劃，差點(diǎn)餓死在德國;英格麗德還得應(yīng)付美國士兵的嚴(yán)密監(jiān)視。這本書高度贊揚(yáng)了厄爾·G·哈里森(Earl G. Harrison)等美國官員，哈里森曾是美國移民和歸化局局長，曾負(fù)責(zé)監(jiān)管克里斯特爾城。他明白這種戰(zhàn)后待遇會帶來多余的、沒必要的殘酷。但是美國對很多從集中營中釋放出來的猶太人持有的強(qiáng)硬反移民態(tài)度也用到了克里斯特爾城這些不受歡迎的人身上。

Among Ms. Russell’s best sources: Mr. Harrison’s diary and the personnel file of JosephO’Rourke, the officer in Crystal City who dealt with the day-to-day problems there. Given theofficiousness with which both men might have distanced themselves from the tough issues thatcame their way, these documents are surprisingly honest and pained about the injustices beingdone. Mr. O’Rourke wrote of watching “typical American boys and girls develop deep feelings ofbetrayal by their government.” After all, in a situation rife with absurdities, they were beingtaught the Bill of Rights in schools at Crystal City, where those rights had been taken awayfrom them.

拉塞爾最好的資料來源包括哈里森的日記以及約瑟夫·歐魯克(Joseph O’Rourke)的人事檔案，后者曾是克里斯特爾城的一名軍官，負(fù)責(zé)處理那里的日常問題。他們兩人秉持不越俎代庖的原則，可能沒有干涉自己看到的一些嚴(yán)重問題，但是這些文件出人意料地誠實(shí)，為不公正的行為感到痛心。歐魯克寫道，他看到“典型的美國男孩和女孩產(chǎn)生被自己的政府背叛的強(qiáng)烈情緒”。畢竟，在那種十分荒謬的情況下，他們?nèi)栽诳死锼固貭柍堑膶W(xué)校里接受《人權(quán)法案》的教育，而他們自己的權(quán)利卻被剝奪了。

“The Train to Crystal City” combines accounts of terrible sorrow and destruction with greatperseverance, and there is one really unexpected turn. Though their internment may havebeen, in theory, the worst thing the children of Crystal City ever experienced, some of themformed lasting bonds. So they have reunions. They have had a newsletter, Crystal CityChatter. And they have their memories, which they shared with Ms. Russell. She now sharesthem with readers who’ll wish these stories weren’t true.

《開往克里斯特爾城的火車》以極大的毅力把這些關(guān)于可怕悲痛和破壞的敘述綜合在一起，書中還有個非常出人意料的轉(zhuǎn)折。雖然理論上講，克里斯特爾城的孩子們被拘留的生活是他們最糟糕的經(jīng)歷，但是其中一些人建立了長久的聯(lián)系。他們后來多次聚會。他們有一個內(nèi)部通訊，名叫《克里斯特爾城絮語》(Crystal CityChatter)。他們有共同的回憶，他們把這些回憶分享給了拉塞爾?，F(xiàn)在，拉塞爾把這些回憶分享給讀者，雖然讀者們希望這些故事不是真的。