SOURCE: "Thomas Mann and His Friends before the Tolan Committee (1942)," in Exile: The Writer's Experience, edited by John M. Spalek and Robert F. Bell, The University of North Carolina Press, 1982, pp. 203-17.

In the following essay, Frey discusses Frank's and Thomas Mann's testimony before the Tolan Committee in 1942, when the United States government established "military areas" to intern "suspicious persons," usually of foreign descent. A transcript of the testimony is included.

Thomas Mann's plea before the "Select Committee Investigating National Defense Migration, U.S. House of Representatives" stands out as a significant example of his readiness to be a spokesman and advocate for all anti-Nazi refugees in the United States during World War II. We are referring here to Mann's testimony during a hearing of that committee (known as the "Tolan Committee" after its chairman, Representative John H. Tolan), which met in the State Building in Los Angeles...