I wish this document weren’t so difficult to read because it’s fascinating.  There was a prisoner exchange in the summer of 1944, and some American citizens who were interned in special camps for Allied nations were released to Lisbon for transport to the US.  Among them was Ida Johnson and her two teenage daughters. Ida was the wife of jazz musician Freddy Johnson.  The family was African-American and moved to Amsterdam in the 1920s, likely to escape racism in the US and so Freddy could play. He was famous in Amsterdam and had many musician friends, including Josephine Baker in Paris.  After the German invasion, Freddy was picked up first, and a year later, Ida and the girls.  After being imprisoned for two years, Freddy was exchanged first.  In July, his wife and daughters were exchanged through Lisbon.  The US embassy took the occasion to interview some of the released group, and this document describes the conversation with Ida.  I would love to find the family and see if they have any artifacts, photos, and documents from their experiences. They were African-American Holocaust survivors.

[UPDATE: In 2015, the decedents of Freddy and Ida Johnson contacted the Museum and donated copies of some of the photographs the family had taken in Europe during the war, including some taken in the Liebenau internment camp.]