Traveling Exhibit Tells Unknown Story of German POWs Held in Camps All Over the U.S. During WWII
Who: TRACES’ mobile museum
What: Scheduled to be in Las Cruces
When: November 30, 2009
Where: Thomas Branigan Memorial Library
Contact: (575) 528-4009
Traveling Exhibit Tells Unknown Story of German POWs Held in Camps All Over the U.S. During WWII
By the end of World War II, approximately 425,000 German, Italian and Japanese prisoners of war (POWs) found themselves imprisoned in more than 660 base and branch POW camps in almost all of the then-48 United States and the territory of Alaska.
Millions more Axis and Allied POWs were held in other camps in Europe, the Soviet Union, Canada, Australia and Africa. While Axis and Soviet POWs were both the perpetrators as well as victims of dictatorial governments and state-sponsored violence, POW experiences on all sides embody ageless and timely themes of war and peace, justice under arms and issues regarding human rights, international reconciliation and future conflict avoidance.
The roughly 372,000 German POWs held in U.S Army-operated camps across the United States were sent out to harvest or process crops, build roads and waterways, fell trees, roof barns, erect silos, work in light non-military industry, lay city sewers and construct tract housing, wash U.S. Army laundry and do other practical wartime tasks.
With the high rate of 19th-century German immigration to America, many of those who worked with POWs spoke to them in their native tongue; some even had relatives or former neighbors among them. In the process, they formed significant, often decades-long friendships with “the enemy” and underwent considerable changes as individuals and as a group – thus fundamentally influencing postwar German values and institutions, as well as American-German relations. A number of POWs even chose to immigrate to the United States after the war.
Using ten narrative panels and films about this story, TRACES’ mobile museum—a retrofitted school bus called the BUS-eum 3— is scheduled to be in Las Cruces from 1:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday, November 30th. It will be parked in front of the Thomas Branigan Memorial Library, 200 E. Picacho Ave.
TRACES exhibit driver, Irving Kellman, will tour with the exhibit and is available for phone or live interviews as the tour progresses.
To confirm the BUS-eum’s itinerary or learn more about this exhibit, see www.TRACES.org. The exhibit’s texts and photos of the exhibit can be previewed at that web site. Reading the narrative in advance facilitates speedier visitor flow in the bus. Educators are welcome to utilize any teacher material on our web site.
TRACES Center for History and Culture is a Midwest/WWII history museum located in downtown Saint Paul, MN. Each of its more than two dozen exhibits about Midwesterners’ encounters with Germans or Austrians between 1933 and 1948 forms part of a larger mosaic, a fuller image of a war that is often misunderstood or seen in clichés. At TRACES, WWII is a case study to learn from for today and future generations.
For more information, contact Lynette Schurdevin at 575/528-4009 or lschurdevin@las-cruces.org