Talking Hawai`i's Story: Oral Histories of an Island People

INTERNED: EXPERIENCES OF AN “ENEMY ALIEN”

ALFRED PREIS INTERNED: EXPERIENCES OF AN “ENEMY ALIEN” No light. No reading matter. No writing matter. We decided, on the first evening, that we’ve got to do something. So I proposed that we would form University of Sand Island, in which each of us who had anything particular to offer would act as discussion leader. And that is what kept us not only busy but learning new skills. Alfred Preis was born in Vienna, Austria in 1911. After graduating from high school in 1929, Preis traveled throughout Europe and later returned to Vienna to study architecture. In 1939, he and his wife, Jana, left Nazi-occupied Austria for Hawai‘i—a destination they chose after seeing movies about the South Seas. Upon his arrival, Preis worked as a designer for Dahl & Conrad, Architects . Following the Pearl Harbor attack, he and his wife were interned in Honolulu for several months as enemy aliens. In 1943, Preis opened his own architectural firm. Alfred Preis is perhaps best known as the designer of the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor. Preis died in 1993. The first executive director of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Preis was interviewed by COH’s Joe Rossi for The State Foundation on Culture and the Arts: An Oral History (COH, 1991). The four-session interview covers his youth in Austria, immigration to Hawai‘i, and career as an architect, planner, and SFCA executive director. This edited narrative focuses on his World War II internment. SUNDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1941 Connie Conrad was the second boss, the designer of Dahl & Conrad. It was he who brought me to Honolulu. I was with them from 1939, June—we Preis, “Interned: Experiences of an ‘Enemy Alien’” 231 arrived, by the way, on June 22, 1939, in Honolulu on Pier 17—until the day Pearl Harbor was attacked and most architectural offices had to close shop. At that time, Pearl Harbor was rebuilt. And a great number of people were there. It was quite obvious that there would be a war, more to me than to other people here because I have seen some of the war preparations of the Nazis. We lived one whole year under the Nazis in Austria. Jana is my wife’s name. We went Christmas shopping and went Downtown to Thayer’s Music Shop. And I found there the Fifth Symphony by Bruckner. The next day was Sunday morning. I had to persuade my wife to let me open this Christmas present, I couldn’t wait. I put the record on. We had a console radio/record player, a Philco. We listened to the Fifth Bruckner—which I still have, that album—and we heard shooting and felt the impact of bombs or shots. And I turned to my wife and said, “That’s a very realistic maneuver today.” At 10:30 [a.m.] we turned the record player off and turned it to radio. KGU every Sunday at 10:30 had a symphony concert, which we turned on. There was no symphony. There was a man who said, “This is not a maneuver . This is the real McCoy.” We were all prepared for it, but we couldn’t believe it. There were two people living on the second floor, and we had the studio on the first floor. So we went up to them and said, “Did you hear that?” Both of them were green in the face. They were public health officers. And they were just called to Pearl Harbor. When they came back in the afternoon, they had aged twenty years, each of them. They had to, with bulldozers, shovel the corpses, and with rakes and shovels to pick up arms and limbs. They helped prepare a temporary burial place at the entrance to Hälawa Valley—a big hole. The corpses were thrown in—and parts of corpses—and they put some chalk on it and then earth. I had some courses in Vienna in civil defense. It was fairly new here. Nobody had worried about that. Sometime before—it happened to be that [Vladimir] Ossipoff was president of the [American Institute of Architects] chapter at that time—I said, “Maybe I could be of help. I learned how to design bomb shelters. There will be a war, and maybe you ought to do something about it.” He picked up the suggestion and arranged that if the war would break out, we would meet in the office...