REPORT: NOVEMBER 2007
CRYSTAL CITY INTERNMENT CAMP RE-UNION
By: Anneliese “Lee” (Wiegand) Krauter
Author of “From the Heart’s Closet—A Young Girl’s World War II Story”
A re-union of some of the last remaining German/American internees of the Crystal City
Family Internment Camp, Crystal City, Texas, happened on November 6th – 9th, 2007. It
was the second such event. The first re-union having taken place on November 11th,
2002.
We gathered on the evening of November 6th in the lobby of the Holiday Inn in nearby
Uvalde. Eight former internees showed up. Along with spouses, we comprised a very
interesting group of 13 seniors. Some still in their 60’s, others in their 70’s. We went to
dinner at a Mexican restaurant and began getting re-acquainted with each other.
Although we were all together in camp during the early to mid 1940’s and beyond and
our common denominator was our childhood imprisonment, we rekindled our friendships
with all those many memories that spilled out during the course of the evening.
The next morning we drove to Crystal City, where we were received by the local Del
Monte Foods facility. David Vogl, who is employed by Del Monte, Inc. as their
Environmental Compliance Officer and travels between five of his company’s canning
plants in various parts of the country, was awaiting our arrival. He had pre-arranged our
visit and all that was to follow. Coincidentally, his father - Ed Vogl - was also a former
internee. We were welcomed in the conference room by a group of Del Monte
employees, as well as Crystal City’s Diane Palacios, City Manager, and Economic
Development Officer, Mark Castillo.
David Vogl introduced us one by one, and because we were such a small group, we each
had an opportunity to tell our own story. There were many similarities, particularly in the
beginning as we all experienced FBI agents knocking on our families’ doors and inviting
our fathe