Sr. Gertrude Maria Schroeder, Internee, 4

Mrs. Ferrara was a matron at the facility who recognized Gertrude from going to Mass at the cathedral. “Mrs. Ferrara was very kind; she put me in the infirmary. It was a small two room facility. With me was the young woman who was in labor. All night long she moaned. I never knew what happened to her or to her baby.

Gertrude’s special treatment lasted a few days before she was sent back to the dormitory. “There were two women assigned to one bed. I shared mine with a girl named Maria.” (Maria Weissenberg was the youngest female held at Fort Armstrong.) She was a 16 years-old German student from Punahou. Maria’s father was a doctor who fled Germany to England, and then sent Maria to Hawaii to be safe.


“The Fort Armstrong center was cold. The dormitory was crowded there was no where to sit and there were fleas in the bed. On Christmas day they took all the beds and fumigated them and after that the we were relieved.

"The worst was that there was nothing to do, no reading materials was allowed and the only activity allowed was a one-hour exercise period. I gained ten pounds in seven weeks because all I could do was sleep and eat.”


During the one-hour exercise period the women walked up and down in a courtyard. Many women shouted up to their husbands in the men’s dormitory. Gertrude recalls, “I didn’t even look to see if my father was one of the men at the window. And I never shouted out to ask if he was among the detainees. I thought that if he were not there, I would have given him up to the FBI and they would pick him up.”
In fact, Mr. Schroeder was not impacted by the detention of aliens. He was living on the windward side of the island during the attack and when Gertrude told him he had been picked up, at first he didn’t believe her.

“Each time my name was called I was afraid. The FBI asked the same question, ‘Where were you on the morning of the attack?’ And my answer was always the same. I told the truth. I was studying for a botany exam and when I studied I used the books written in German. The German books were almost always available and I could read in German equally as well or better than I could in English.” Sr. Gertrude believes that her use of German-language scientific materials, and her friendship with Japanese students at the university, made her suspect.


Sr. Gertrude Maria states, “It is true that we had no contact with outsiders. I knew that the sisters at the convent would be concerned about me and I tried to talk to the guard to ask him to tell them, but he didn’t. And it is true that we didn’t have any change of clothes for three weeks. We wore the same things and washed them each night. It was the sisters who brought me clothes during the first visit.”
When the sisters found out where she was they brought Gertrude clothes and candy.

“Lots of candy,” Gertrude said. “They didn’t know I was so well-fed.” Gertrude remembers seeing Mother Louise for the first time since her arrest. “I broke all the rules explained to me by the guard and ran to her and hugged her.”

It was during that visit that Gertrude found out about Mother Louise’s attempts to arrange for her release. Mother Louise contacted the bishop about Gertrude and the bishop contacted Fr. Ryan Hughes, a Maryknoll father who had connections with the Army. Eventually, it was Fr. Hughes’ efforts that succeeded in Gertrude’s release.

“I remember making a novena and on the ninth day, January 26, 1942 I was released. That morning Captain Benson called my name and the name of Maria. Both of us were ordered downstairs.” At the bottom of the steps were two or three men in dark suits. “I didn’t know where they were going to take us. I wondered if we were being sent to Sand Island. Then Captain Benson told me the men were here to take me home.”
The January 27, 1942 entry of the community journal reads, “Gertrude Schroeder has been returned to us. There is great rejoicing among us. We also received another girl, Maria, who had been in captivity with Gertrude. The joy of these two children was indescribable.”

After Gertrude’s release, she returned to her studies at the university.

In 1943, Gertrude Erika Schroeder applied to become a member of the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts. To be accepted into the community she had to have no family obligations or objections. Gertrude asked her father for his permission and he gave his only child his blessing to become a Roman Catholic nun. But there was another obstacle to be resolved—Gertrude was an alien and technically “on parole” during the war. So she wrote to the Military General to release her from parole, which he did and several years later, she became a citizen of the United States.

Gertrude entered the convent in August 1943. “I was given the name Sr. Benigna. It distressed my father that I had been given the name. But after the Vatican II Council, I took back my own name of Gertrude adding Maria because of my devotion to the Blessed Mother.”