Some escaped out of homesickness, some out of patriotism, some out of fear of being returned to their altered homeland. History of former Missouri POW camp preserved in cigarette case Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch, The main avenue at Camp Weingarten lined by small barracks buildings in June 1943. Southeast Missouri State University Cape Girardeau, MO 63701 Phone: (573) 651-2245; Fax: (573) 651-2666; Email: semoarchives@semo.edu Guide to the Weingarten P.O.W Camp Collection . *wh};yeErfRV8n#z Thats why I want to tell the story of its creation its history, so that its association to Camp Weingarten is never forgotten., Jeremy Amick is one of the authors writing for WAR HISTORY ONLINE. The, This camp had a guard fire on and kill several German prisoners. The U.S. government learned quickly to separate those elements, Fiedler said, and relationships improved. The farmer did not want to respond by letter but his daughter did, which would eventually result in a marriage. Camps typically held between 50 and 250 POWs and the men were housed in any sort of structure that was available. About 500 American soldiers were assigned to guard 3,600 Italians at the camp. Even as conditions worsened for American POWs held in the European theater of World War II and word spread around the United States about Hitlers efforts to exterminate the Jews, the U.S. government remained firm that prisoners of war should be treated according to the Geneva Conventions. "His hometown really wasn't all that far from Camp Weingarten.". Pike County Missouri - POW Camps ", As noted in Returning to America: German Prisoners of War and American Experience, of the more than half million Germans who immigrated to America between 1947 and 1960, several thousand were former POWs. The case was crafted by an Italian prisoner of war held at Camp Weingarten south of St. Louis. In his written account (via The Fallen Foe), POW Fritz Ensslin, for example, claimed that many transferred POWs died in France performing "forced labor. POW Fritz Ensslin noted in a letter (via The Fallen Foe) that at his Missouri camp a "cabaret theater and even a dance group consisting of 12 'girls' trained by a ballet master" gave performances that were regularly attended by American officers. A walled patio and fireplace with masks of Comedy and Tragedy were built near the theater and are still landmarks on the university campus. Detention records maintained by Sesenna show he departed Canada on December 3, 1942, and was with the first group of Italian POWs to arrive at Camp Clark near Nevada, Missouri, nine days later. Missouri figured into this equation, housing some 15,000 prisoners of war from Germany and Italy inside state lines. Camp Albuquerque - Wikipedia The camp was named for General Harvey C Clark, Missouris adjutant general and commander of Missouris National Guard. Bucknor for rejecting handshake: Zero class, Man shot and killed after fight in downtown St. Louis, Liberty High student killed in St. Charles shooting could heal you with a smile, Fate of St. Louis Fox Theatre still undecided, Brothers who did everything together, fashionista among victims in fatal St. Louis crash, Centene expects to lose millions of Medicaid customers beginning in April, Arch Madness: 2023 MVC Basketball Tournament bracket, schedule, game times, TV info, St. Louis man charged in quadruple fatal crash; police say he ran off with his license plate, St. Louis prosecutors staff down by nearly half as caseloads jump. Prisoners wore rejected GI garb marked with PW.. During one kangaroo court in Georgia, two pro-Nazi POWs charged an anti-Nazi POW with being an informant and liking American jazz. The military exhibit wouldnt be complete without a salute to Nevadas Camp Clark. In Kansas, for example, some farmers invited their POW workers for meals and allowed them to go hunting or pony riding unattended. POWs mounted theatrical productions and played concerts. Some were transferred to a special camp for Nazi incorrigibles in Oklahoma. Italians went to Camp Weingarten, at the German-heritage village of 99 residents. During July and August 1943, Camp Weingarten, Mis-souri, sent approximately 300 Italian POWs to Shenandoah.11 Those POWs handled most of DeKalb's . Genevieve Camp Crowder, outside of Neosho, Missouri Camp Clark, outside of Nevada, Missouri Click here for a state map showing camp locations They stared "open-mouthed" as the POWs "jumped down from railroad cars and marched in orderly rows to the camp four miles west of town." When Levin and Straussberg fled Hellwig farm on June 16, 1945, they were among roughly 100 German POWs who lived there. The Factory's first step in the POW camps was the distribution of books banned by Hitler. President Harry Truman ordered them sent back to Europe "to whichever country wanted them. Pike County Missouri - POW Camps From the Stars to the Steamers, from the Billikens to the World Cup, St. Louis has a storied soccer tradition. POWs in the US. The prison camps were identical to housing areas that our own troops occupied.. According to Smithsonian Magazine, in 1942, as Great Britain was running out of places to hold Axis prisoners, the U.S. began work on creating its own network of POW camps. All buildings have since been demolished, the only structure left standing is the base of one stone pillar where the main gate of the camp stood.
$.' Today, it functions as a National Guard Training Center. Out of the ruins of fascist defeat, the U.S. and its allies hoped to plant the seeds of democracy. The result of the First Lady's initiative was the Prisoner of War Special Projects Division, led by Lt. Col. Edward Davison out of Camp Kearney in Rhode Island. The permanent barracks, were obtained as surplus and formed the core of the community college campus for Crowder College in 1962. As noted in New Georgia Encyclopedia, the hard-liners doled out harsh discipline and attacked fellow prisoners for their lack of patriotism, among other offenses. :_Z";co?0N1mx@a_
ES[0 Genevieve and Farmington, Missouri, (Camp Weingarten) had no pre-war existence, wrote Fiedler. The POW camps adhered to the Geneva Conventions Missouri Digital Heritage Other POWs were transported to work on farms and canneries in neighboring communities. "He then took it back to camp with him and that's when he gave it to one of the Italian POWs.". Last chance! Prisoners of War were not confined solely to the upkeep of their own numbers: many were put to work in the service of U.S. military operations at the camps themselves. Post-Dispatch file photo, A German POW on a boat camp in St. Louis relaxes and reads on his bunk. "Established at Weingarten, a sleepy little town on State Highway 32 between Ste. POWs built secret tunnels, slipped away from inattentive guards, constructed dummies of themselves, and impersonated U.S. officers, among other tricks. Little remains of the once sprawling POW camp located approximately 90 miles south of St. Louis, with the exception of a stone fireplace that was part of the Officers Club. #"8_Bh ?hpUZ) See the World War II POW camps near St. Louis - STLtoday.com Sixteen of the men were killed or died as a result of an accident on 31 October 1945. Thousands of Axis POWs worked in the fields, replacing American farm boys gone to war. Fort Leonard Wood, in central Missouri Camp Weingarten, near Ste. To disguise its purpose, The Factory POW staff interspersed pro-democracy tracts with fiction and other entertaining fare. Consider reading Fiedlers book, which you can find here. German and Italian POW Camp during 19421945 housing mostly Africa Corps Officers and Italians enlisted from the Torch Campaign. Post-Dispatch file photo, Some of the German POWs who were housed in a prison compound at Fort Leonard Wood in central Missouri watch an Army Signal Corps film of scenes from a Nazi concentration camp in Europe. Arcadia Publishing. Japanese and German POWs; Japanese, Italian, and German internees; now, Constructed for prisoners, later reused for housing after the war, Fortuitously located outside a city where many locals still spoke German. Access Conditions . Despite their careful planning, 10 were captured within days, far from the border. Relic of Camp Weingarten - History of former Missouri prisoner of war Some fought floods with sandbags. Send questions and comments about this story to feedback@stlpublicradio.org. Some of the camps were designated "segregation camps", where Nazi "true believers" were separated from the rest of the prisoners, whom they terrorized and even killed for being friendly with their American captors. As described in The Washington Post, the War Department, believing that a happy POW was a pliant POW, went above and beyond when it came to POW food, education, and entertainment. Genevieve. Camp Locations The Enemy Among Us - Dave Fiedler The installation housed around 900 Germans, who worked as gardeners and maintenance men around the base and surrounding community. The majority of escapees were captured quickly and without incident. As author David Fiedler explained in his book "The Enemy Among Us: POWs in Missouri During World War II," the state was once home to more than 15,000 German and Italian prisoners of war (POW). No one was happy to be a prisoner of war, but many were glad to bide time to count the days until they got back home, Fiedler said. Labor unions, however, regarded them as competition for returning U.S. forces and demanded their expulsion. 2011 - Dave Fiedler. Over time, the POWs not only proved themselves capable workers troublemaking Nazis aside they also earned the trust and admiration of many of their private employers. 339-351. About 15,000 German and Italian prisoners of war were confined in Missouri, and a few tried to escape. About 15,000 German and Italian prisoners of war spent part of World War II under guard at 30 camps scattered across Missouri. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) identifies sites such as Chesterfield Ex Satellite Pow Camp because they pose or had once posed a potential risk to human health and/or the environment due to contamination by one or more hazardous wastes. 6U z*&`873 hkg7*I|dx^EY?IF$zwUJH!/V>H>is&n /t; A handpicked group of intellectual American officers joined forces with anti-Nazi POWs, and the democracy-promoting strategies of The Factory, as it became known, were devised. Many of the camps where they were held have faded into distant memory as little evidence remains of their existence; however, one local resident has a relic from a former POW camp that provides an enduring connection to the service of a departed relative. The following October, the former POW camp was closed and many of the buildings were dismantled, shipped and reassembled as housing for student veterans at colleges and universities throughout the United States. With a weekly newsletter looking back at local history. Originally CCC Camp Lakewood built in 1936, Housed 3,500 Italians and later 10,000 Germans, Formerly the county courthouse, is now the headquarters of the. Approximately 1,000 Japanese Americans were kept there, under tight security, behind multiple layers of barbed wire fence. They were contracted to work on farms and in canneries, mills, and tanneries. The Factory also created Der Ruf, a German-language newsletter, "written by German POWs for German POWs." Located where the present day Cleburne Conference center is located in the 1500 block of West Henderson(business HWY 67), Housed German POWs from the Afrika Korps after their defeat in North Africa. According to theSociety for Military History, the last batch of them 1,500 German prisoners sailed from New Jersey on July 26, 1946. According to Society for Military History, to create rights and status equal to the U.S. military, German officers above the rank of captain were assigned their own POW orderlies and generals were housed in private huts. Thirty-three German POWs and two Italian POWs are now buried in the post cemetery. The Untold Truth Of America's WWII German POW Camps - Grunge.com Four years later, the government offered the buildings at auction to relieve the post-war shortage of housing. Some classes were taught by the POWs themselves, others were conducted as correspondence courses. Similar scenes played out across rural America, but over time, as noted in The Washington Post, many of these small communities adjusted to the POW presence. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. Post-Dispatch file photo. Photo by Jack Gould of the Post-Dispatch, A German POW on a boat camp in St. Louis relaxes and reads on his bunk. Sent to a camp in Colorado, he asked for and was granted a transfer to Crossville. To keep them from accumulating enough cash to bankroll an escape, prisoners were paid in canteen coupons. Hollywood movies and cartoons were screened. Levin and Straussberg were among the 420,000 German and Italian prisoners of war who spent part of World War II under guard in the United States. "That's why I want to tell the story of its creation its history, so that its association to Camp Weingarten is never forgotten.". Beginning as a reception center for newly inducted draftees and enlistments who were issued the initial uniform clothing allowance and transferred to other army posts for initial testing and subsequent assignment to a basic training command. In fact, much of life that prisoners of war led in Missouri during that time was like that of U.S. Army privates serving in those camps: they received the same food and housing, ate meals in the mess halls, were given days off and performed duties ranging from laundry to cooking to working as orderlies in the Officers Club. Camps were built on military bases, like Fort Leonard Wood, and within the base there would be a prisoner-of-war compound. See the World War II POW camps near St. Louis. The 3,600 prisoners planted tomatoes and took over cooking, attracting American guards with their spicy enhancements to GI fare. This movements became known as the "Tiger Death March," so called for the brutal treatment that the prisoners . Back at camp, fellow POWs hailed them as heroes. A number of prisoners of war did later return as immigrants and about a dozen of those immigrants settled in St. Louis. 6 0 obj
From the start of the Civil War through to 1863 a parole exchange system saw most prisoners of war swapped relatively quickly. One of the first three designated camps for anti-Nazis, along with. American women fell in love with prisoners and a couple of times it turned into aiding escapes, which was considered a traitorous act and a criminal offense.. Gaertner finally confessed, and Jean, determined he should turn himself in, began researching the POW camps.