Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II

by Daniel James Brown

For the most part, Geneva County’s white citizens appeared to be more at ease with the presence of the Germans in their midst than they were with American boys with Japanese faces, even though not long before these same Germans had been doing their best to kill Americans in North Africa. And the tolerance shown the POWs in Alabama was not unique to that state. The presence of nearly 400,000 German POWs in America, in fact, led to some staggering ironies across the country. The camps in which they were held sometimes offered comforts and amenities that far exceeded those in the WRA camps for Japanese Americans. And in many rural communities, particularly in the South, they were not only tolerated but warmly welcomed, sometimes sharing Sunday dinner with local families or eating at lunch counters and drinking from water fountains where Black Americans were not allowed to sit or drink.