I watched this program on Minnesota public television while on a recent vacation back to my home area, and was delighted to find that is is available on YouTube. It is an outstanding and uplifting program, and will be of interest to those outside Minnesota (I think a map in the video shows other POW camps scattered around the U.S.).
Somehow while growing up in the 50s and 60s I never learned that there were German prisoners-of-war living here and working on farms during the war. It was win-win for American farmers and for the prisoners. This video is well worth watching IMHO.
I haven’t watched the video yet but I intend to. I wanted to comment right away though because I had no idea that there were any WWII POW camps on US soil until two years ago when my niece got married. The ceremony was at a little chapel in Glenview, IL where the Naval Airbase used to be. The base was closed many years ago and torn down for new housing, recreation and shopping areas. But the chapel was spared because it was built by German POWs and now has landmark status.
ReplyDeleteI live in Glenview! There is a really interesting history regarding the POW's who were here. The WPA had a camp established in the area that is Blue Star Woods/Harms Woods, in the 1930s. The majority of the workers who live there built the Skokie Lagoons. Pretty massive project. When they were finished, the camp was mothballed until the war happened. German POW's from Rommel's North African forces were brought there. Anecdotally, I have heard that the farmers of Glenview were German and could "check a prisoner out" for the day to work on their farm. The caveat was that they had to feed them. Not much remains in the woods from that time. A few old light posts and concrete foundation pieces.
DeleteYears ago, I stumbled upon a POW museum in Aliceville, AL. It housed thousands of German POW's. It was that accidental find that sparked my interest.
Thank you for posting!
Thank you. My father was at one such camp during WW2, IN Minnesota (yeah, he was on the wrong team).
ReplyDeleteThat's cool. I hope your father's experience was as positive as that of most of the stories told in the video.
DeleteMom was 10 when the war started. My grandfather had a farm in Middle Tennessee. She told me about the German soldiers digging potatoes and her helping her mother cook to feed them. In her one room schoolhouse she was given a card that had the silhouettes of planes on it so she could identify them from the ground. The days of conventional war are over. I wonder if today's parents could keep it together long enough to help their kids get through a war.
ReplyDeleteWait, a bunch of German freeloader came to America and took jobs away from farmers and the then President didn't kick them out of the country back to Germany??? What a loser!
ReplyDeleteCame to America? They were brought to America. Many farmers were serving overseas in some sort of worldwide conflict. And the President during most of that conflict imprisoned a group of people who had broken no laws, many of them American citizens. Yeah, good times.
Deletehttps://tywkiwdbi.blogspot.com/2025/06/too-many-people-just-cant-recognize.html
DeleteI think sarcasm in this case rather than satire, but the same principle applies. Read the room.
Camp Perry in Ohio was another camp that housed German and Italian POWs. The stories sound very similar, that the prisoners would work in local farms and orchards while they were here. Many of the prisoners emigrated to Ohio after the war.
ReplyDeleteI live next to Fort Jackson in Columbia, South Carolina. 2000 German POWs were held in my neighborhood--one of the barracks they lived in was converted into a home and sits across from Forest Lake elementary school. The future civil rights crusader and federal judge Matthew Perry, during the war a GI stationed in Mississippi, was so troubled by seeing waitresses serve (and flirt with) Italian POWs inside a restaurant while he, serving his country and in uniform, had to wait by the back door to receive food, that he was driven to pursue a law degree (which required its own lawsuits to make possible.) A collection of POW letters and postcards from these German POWs at Fort Jackson are on display at the Anne Frank Center (annefrankcenter.com) on the University of South Carolina campus, the permanent partner site of the Anne Frank House in North America.
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