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Scholars are uncovering a grisly use, during the Second World War, of a former embarkation facility on the Mississippi River in Algiers, LA. Following the Japanese attack on the US base on Pearl Harbor, the Roosevelt administration suspected that there may have been Nazi spies among the more than a million and a half German-speaking people living in Latin America. Through the State Department-run Enemy Alien Control Program, US officials were directed to travel to various Latin American countries, find people suspected of being Nazis, and bring them to the US. As their methods were less than professional, these officials simply paid locals to give up their German-speaking neighbors. When these people were brought to US shores, their clothing and documents were seized, and they were charged with entering the country illegally and held in various internment camps. Among those illegally "imported" and interned in this manner were entire families, including 81 Jews.
The story was recently covered by Laine Kaplan-Levenson of New Orleans, utilizing research of Professors Marilyn Miller of Tulane University, Harvey Strum of Sage College of Albany, and Max Paul Friedman of American University. It has been aired on NPR and can be heard here.
This project hopes to gather profiles of those kidnapped and held illegally in the internment camp known as "Camp Algiers."
See also http://wwno.org/post/wwii-internment-camp-camp-algiers-part-i and http://wwno.org/post/camp-algiers-new-orleans-forgotten-wwii-intern...