POW Camps in America

[Stearmen]

Thanks for the video, very interesting lecture. By the way, you have a nice voice, you should watch it. I can tell the audience liked you!

 

[AmateisGal]

Thanks for the video, very interesting lecture. By the way, you have a nice voice, you should watch it. I can tell the audience liked you!

Thank you!

 

[Treetopflyer]

I find this topic very interesting since I grew up ten miles from where a temporary camp had been established in Hollandale, MN. People in the local area still talk about the German POWs that were there. My grandparents were field hands in Hollandale during the war and my Uncle remembers that he was told strictly to never talk to any of the POWs.

 

[Cornshucker77]

Being interested in history and a fellow Nebraskan I intend to pick up a copy of your book. Can't wait to read it.

 

[3fingers]

I missed this earlier. This topic has always held interest to me as there was a POW and training camp near us here known as Camp Ellis. A fellow who was stationed there for a time and married a local girl worked for my grandfather for many years, so I heard lots of stories from him growing up. Our camp was 17,750 acres with 2500 buildings all built in 6 months starting in September 1942. Besides the training function and the 5000 German POW's kept there, there was also a 1500 bed military hospital. This was all farmland and the farmers were bought out and given 30 days to vacate. The government took sealed bids on the growing crops and gave the winning bidders a small window of time to harvest them before construction started. If you did not get the crop harvested, it was plowed under. The camp was used by the Illinois National Guard and the Air Force for a few years after the war, but sometime in the '50s the government sold the buildings off and sold the land to be converted back to farm land. There are still quite a few buildings around the area that were purchased from the camp and moved. There are several barracks buildings up the road from me that have been apartments for 60 years now. There is an excellent book about the camp that has been out of print for many years and now brings $2-500.00 depending on condition. There is a second book printed in 1945 that I have only quickly looked through, but it seems good. There is a much later book that I have not read, but I have been told it is lacking.

 

[AmateisGal]

I find this topic very interesting since I grew up ten miles from where a temporary camp had been established in Hollandale, MN. People in the local area still talk about the German POWs that were there. My grandparents were field hands in Hollandale during the war and my Uncle remembers that he was told strictly to never talk to any of the POWs.

There were a lot of rules that were broken. German POWs ate lunch with the families they worked for, guards fell asleep, etc.

 

[AmateisGal]

Being interested in history and a fellow Nebraskan I intend to pick up a copy of your book. Can't wait to read it.

Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy it!

 

[AmateisGal]

I missed this earlier. This topic has always held interest to me as there was a POW and training camp near us here known as Camp Ellis. A fellow who was stationed there for a time and married a local girl worked for my grandfather for many years, so I heard lots of stories from him growing up. Our camp was 17,750 acres with 2500 buildings all built in 6 months starting in September 1942. Besides the training function and the 5000 German POW's kept there, there was also a 1500 bed military hospital. This was all farmland and the farmers were bought out and given 30 days to vacate. The government took sealed bids on the growing crops and gave the winning bidders a small window of time to harvest them before construction started. If you did not get the crop harvested, it was plowed under. The camp was used by the Illinois National Guard and the Air Force for a few years after the war, but sometime in the '50s the government sold the buildings off and sold the land to be converted back to farm land. There are still quite a few buildings around the area that were purchased from the camp and moved. There are several barracks buildings up the road from me that have been apartments for 60 years now. There is an excellent book about the camp that has been out of print for many years and now brings $2-500.00 depending on condition. There is a second book printed in 1945 that I have only quickly looked through, but it seems good. There is a much later book that I have not read, but I have been told it is lacking.

It's terrific that someone took the time to record the story of the camp near you. Unfortunately, so many archival documents pertaining to the camps were lost or destroyed, and it makes it difficult to reconstruct the history. I have done a lot of work on the reeducation program that the US War Department implemented to "deNazify" Hitler's soldiers. It would be fascinating to do an in-depth study of how this program worked throughout the camps, but I don't think it's possible.

 

[p51]

When I played pee-wee league baseball in elementary school (I grew up in Tallahassee, Florida), the field we used, everyone said, had been a German POW enclosure during WW2. To this day, I haven't found anything on where the enclosure was, only that there apparently was one in the area somewhere.

Unfortunately, so many archival documents pertaining to the camps were lost or destroyed, and it makes it difficult to reconstruct the history.

I hear you there. For a long time, I wanted to write a book on a fighter training field in my hometown in Florida during WW2. I amassed a good collection of memorabilia, but hardly any real info to fill a book with. I checked with the USAF historical center at Maxwell, and they checked and found only one box of random documents existed today. Hardly enough to write a book about, so I gave up a long time ago on that dream.
The bottom line is that the Army didn't see any reason to keep records of these stateside posts, so they didn't.
And folks like us have a decidedly uphill fight if we want to know anything now.

 

[AmateisGal]

The bottom line is that the Army didn't see any reason to keep records of these stateside posts, so they didn't.
And folks like us have a decidedly uphill fight if we want to know anything now.

Yep. That's it exactly. I know at work, I stop and think before I throw physical documents away. I know we can't save everything, but it makes you wonder: will a researcher need this someday?

 

[Redshoes51]

I'm late to the thread... I live in the Mississippi Delta... and my Dad would speak of the German and Italian prison camps that were located in this area... he even told me of a German soldier who managed to escape... and was found living with a woman and helping her run her farm. He was returned to the prison camp, but after the war, Dad said that he managed to stay behind some how.

I later found some records that mentioned the German camp... but not the Italian prison camp... but maybe the records just weren't complete... Dad and Mom lived here for so long... I don't think they could have been that wrong about this story... especially since Mom was of German heritage...

I look forward to reading your blogs...

~shoes~

 

[AmateisGal]

I'm late to the thread... I live in the Mississippi Delta... and my Dad would speak of the German and Italian prison camps that were located in this area... he even told me of a German soldier who managed to escape... and was found living with a woman and helping her run her farm. He was returned to the prison camp, but after the war, Dad said that he managed to stay behind some how.

I later found some records that mentioned the German camp... but not the Italian prison camp... but maybe the records just weren't complete... Dad and Mom lived here for so long... I don't think they could have been that wrong about this story... especially since Mom was of German heritage...

I look forward to reading your blogs...

~shoes~

Yeah, I think there were some romances between American women and German and/or Italian POWs.

The Germans and Italians were kept in the same camps. When Italy surrendered, a lot of Italian POWs volunteered for Italian Service Units which allowed them to assist with the war effort. POWs were not allowed to do any work that would contribute to the war effort, such as working in bomb factories, etc (though my research showed that this did happen in Nebraska, a clear violation of the Geneva Convention).