Eric Gehrmann at the 2022 St. Marys Day of Remembrance | Courtesy of Daniella Tijerina
German American Internment project
Oral History Interview
Interviewee: Eric Walter Gehrmann
Interviewers: Teresa Van Hoy, Nicole Johnson
12 February 2019
Father distributed the rations for the Crystal City Camp. So if any was leftover, we got a little more.
One day walking around in the camp, Max said, “Look at that white powder. It looks like sugar. Why don’t you try it?” It started to burn my tongue. It was caustic powder for cleaning toilets. Could have killed me if I had swallowed it.
[tmvh note: Even 75 years later, food scarcity figures large in this internee child’s memory.]
Art was very helpful. Thursday, April 16, 1988
[tmvh: We called Art Jacobs at this juncture. Art and Eric spoke a mélange of English and German to each other. They made a joke about the barbed wire fence: Art, “Wie gehts? No gates! Jump the fence.” That was the joke in Crystal City.]
Oct. 25, 1938, Eric’s birthday. Born in San Jose, Costa Rica.
father: Kurt Gehrmann, German, 34
mother: Irma Gutierrez, (native-born Costa Rican), 32
Liliana, 8
Max, 6
Eric, 5
Mercedes, 3
They took three of us and my parents, but they left Mercedes because she was sick. We landed in New Orleans. When we got to the US, the authorities here insisted that we don’t separate families. They sent for her.
Costa Rica didn’t want to let them take the Germans. But US insisted that they wouldn’t buy anything. No more coffee or anything. So Costa Rica had to let them take us.
Father worked for Mr. Blum, a Jewish German. Father kept to himself. He didn’t attend German meetings. When they picked Father up, they put him in the German club in San Jose. By himself. Later on, they came to tell us he’s going, but if you want to go with him you can. Mr. Blum was not taken. Even though he was German. He disappeared. We went in the train to Crystal City. The train to Crystal City stopped in San Antonio.
Years later, a couple came in from England w/ BBC and we took them to Crystal City and showed them this and that. I remember when I got there and I saw all that. I took my mother. She was crying like crazy. She never went back. I’m just so surprised that she [mother] lasted so long after what she went through. Crystal City: I remember that a little Japanese girl died in the water. [tmvh: Eric was only 5 so he remembers best the dramatic & traumatic—caustic white powder, abandoning sister, internee child drowning]
The camp had a pool. I had friends from Argentina. Peruvian friends. Mi amigo, Peters. Eckert Peters. And his cousin. My parents used to play cards with the Peters family.
[tmvh: the three Peters brothers and their families were also Costa Rican. Karin Peters, is now the mother-in-law of CNN's Andrew Morse. She was "Baby #12" born in the Crystal City camp to Costa Rican parents. Here is the SA Express-News article about her visit to us at St. Mary's with daughter, Ana Morse. We also took them to the Bullock Museum exhibit and to Crystal City camp. Ana attended our event in New York.] DESCRIBING HIS REPATRIATON (Crystal City- to Gripsholm Mercy Ship in NY harbor, thence to Germany): That ship was so big. I got lost on it. They had a swimming pool but I didn’t want to get in because I thought the bottom would empty into the sea. Ended up in Munchen. We lived in Neunar and the other was Rosenheim. My dad worked for a bank. My dad was pretty smart with numbers and stuff like that. We ended up living in a bank building, on the third floor. Every time there was an air raid, everyone would go downstairs to the bank vault. Two or three guys would hold the door so it wouldn’t slam shut in the explosions. The door could close and oxygen would disappear. Twice my mother couldn’t come down. She had to stay upstairs. She had to stay with Dita. (Mercedita. Ana Mercedita).
[Tmvh: Dita had some contagious childhood illness so the others would not allow her in the vault. So his mother and his sister had to risk the bombs.] We used to collect mushrooms in the Black Forest with my mother. She said, “they aren’t going to bomb the mushrooms.” We had to hide. I went to school in Germany which I didn’t like at all because Germans were racist. God forbid I speak Spanish because they frowned at me. I struggled to learn at the beginning because I didn’t speak German. I remember that we learned a song about bread (brötchen). After the war, I remember Russians coming in. Not the Americans. They had a tank and they were in the middle of the road and destroying whatever they could. They went in the bank and started scooping up money. We picked up some coins that they dropped. I may still have some.
[tmvh: Munich was a major Allied target, not least of all for propaganda reasons. The Nazi party was born there. 50% of Munich was damaged or destroyed in the bombing.] Russians were passing by and yelling. Everyone was hiding and we watched through the window. After the war, my father was detained. Arrested in Germany. I didn’t see him for a while. And then all of a sudden, he was driving an American Red Cross truck. I used to go with him to the hospital. He’d hide me and smuggle me in. He’d give me a sausage because there was no food. He was lucky he was working there. He was working there because he spoke Spanish and English and was brought from the US. Father’s family was from Berlin. It says on his death certificate that he was born in Berlin. He died at 85. Alzheimers. Here in San Antonio. Liliana came to the US in 1956. I came in 1957. Dita stayed in Costa Rica with a man who was abusive. She was so beautiful, he wouldn’t let her go. The first guy who showed up, she took off. My mother called me one day and she said, “Dita se fue.” I was working in Newark.
Richie was born in Germany. Mom used to say, “He was the last bomb that fell on me.” She was funny. Dad was not funny. Funny only when he was drinking.
After the war, my mother tried to get back to Costa Rica.
In Germany, there was a building for people who were refugees.
United Nations Refugee Association. In Munchen we stayed there without our dad. Big camp. Big buildings. Big rooms. With cots. Take little space. Hanging burlap sacks. Sitting and sleeping. Right next to you, someone else.
Mealtime. It was bad. I went down with my mother. Milk was spilled. She slipped and fell down on the cement. I thought she was dead and I started to cry. Milk with noodles. So cold. Long time until people started to send money (my grandmother). We went to so many countries before we got to Costa Rica. Every time we had to wait for money. People actually sent money to help. People started to send money. (He lists the people.) Regular Costa Ricans. The papers would publish that a Costa Rican mother and children were stuck in Germany after the war. My mother was stuck there with 5 kids.
As a matter of fact, some guy told my mother that if you cannot afford your baby, Richie, I’ll buy him from you. He wanted to take him away. Big shot American guy wanted to buy my baby brother. My mother said no way.
My mother went through so much.
We were in France, in a hotel. My mother left us alone because she had to go to the Costa Rican consulate. We were in Paris. I remember the Eiffel Tower. Champs Elysees. Kids eating chocolate and we had nothing. There was an outdoor market, open air. Selling everything, salads and stuff, and I grabbed an egg already cooked. We were hungry.
Re: the return to Latin America-- All I know is that we were in an airplane. Amphibious. Three motors. One of the motors caught on fire. It landed in the sea. Then all of a sudden, little boats came to help us. I remember seeing the palm trees. I knew then we must be finally almost home. We ended up in Venezuela. Then Panama. After Panama, we made it to Costa Rica. Always slow, waiting for money.
When we got to Costa Rica, we still had the same clothes, lederhosen. My father, they wouldn’t let him out of Germany. They kept him in Germany for a year. Grandmother (Irma’s mother) had a house. She had 6 sisters and she was the seventh. And one brother. The whole family chipped in. Father showed up a year after. They lost everything, but he was pretty smart. Worked for a big company in Costa Rica.
Dad escaped with some friends, through Austria (and Russia?—very dangerous for a German) and appeared in Costa Rica (over a year later?).
Go to church. After church. Walk around. Men walked counter-clockwise; girls walked the other way. If you want to take her out, someone has to chaperone. It was love. We went to school. Colegio Los Angeles. Catholic. I played basketball and we ended up second. I cry when I talk to my sister and we reminisce. She has Alzheimers.