When Levin and Straussberg fled Hellwig farm on June 16, 1945, they were among roughly 100 German POWs who lived there. Weingarten is a small town in southern Missouri, outside of St. Genevieve. Because the branch camps were often short-lived, and some records have been lost or destroyed in the sixty years that have since gone by, it is likely that a couple have been omitted. During World War II, more than fifteen thousand German and Italian soldiers came to Missouri. Post-Dispatch file photo, A German POW on a boat camp in St. Louis relaxes and reads on his bunk. Many St. Louisans were outraged when the program made most . See the World War II POW camps near St. Louis - STLtoday.com The camp was just east of the village of Weingarten, on Missouri Highway 32, west of Ste. oW5( The location of the former POW camp is a residential area now. Using a secret 60-foot tunnel equipped with lighting and air bellows, 12 German officers slipped away from their barracks and, armed with tissue-paper maps, went separately toward Mexico. About 500 American soldiers were assigned to guard 3,600 Italians at the camp. With Glidden is Lt. Lawrence Ponetretti, an Army interpreter. | This movements became known as the "Tiger Death March," so called for the brutal treatment that the prisoners . Some were transferred to a special camp for Nazi incorrigibles in Oklahoma. 2,000 German POWs were houses at seven locations on the. See the World War II POW camps near St. Louis. Despite the challenges of overseeing the internment of former enemy soldiers, the camp experienced few security incidents and conditions remained rather cordial, in part due to the sustenance given the prisoners. Photo by Buel White of the Post-Dispatch. <> Per articles of the Convention, American soldiers were compelled to salute higher ranking POWs, and the infamous Nazi salute was permitted. 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. German POWs on the American Homefront - Smithsonian Magazine The Enemy Among Us: POW's in Missouri during World War II Hardcover Justifiably, much has been written about America's World War II Japanese internment camps and the systemic racism that spawned them. 'P?W"=m!er\!qw%p`YU|CYPJ*,naMSanr,{3zpY6U,Av/ They decorated their barracks with their work. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. Fort Leonard Wood, in central Missouri Camp Weingarten, near Ste. Large German pow camp 2 miles outside of Thomasville. Korean War POW Camps - Missouri Korean War Veterans Memorial The caption information from 1945 does not identify the boat as the one on the Missouri River, near today's Chesterfield, or the one at the foot of Arsenal Street. Coal mining was prominent in the late 1870s to the 1950s. <>/ExtGState<>/XObject<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/Annots[ 9 0 R] /MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> aka: POW Camps (World War II) During World War II, the United States established many prisoner of war (POW) camps on its soil for the first time since the Civil War. The post also served as an infantry replacement center and had a German prisoner of war camp. 300 POWs from Camp McCoy arrived at the Calumet County Fairgrounds in June, 1945. Eventually, every state (with the exceptions of Nevada, North Dakota, and Vermont) had at least one POW camp. When a group of female columnists informed Eleanor Roosevelt about the situation, she vowed to investigate and take action. Approximately 1,000 Japanese Americans were kept there, under tight security, behind multiple layers of barbed wire fence. The camp had no pre-war existence, and unlike the other major camps in the state, it never served any military function other than a pen for Italian POW's. The first POW's, all Italian, arrived on May 7, 1943. Sited on the abandoned Civilian Conservation Corps camp about 1.6 miles east of the Stark Covered Bridge in Stark, Coos County. The case not only had a specially crafted latching mechanism, but was also etched with an emblem of an eagle on the cover with barracks buildings and a guard tower from the camp inscribed upon the inside. The permanent barracks, were obtained as surplus and formed the core of the community college campus for Crowder College in 1962. Unfortunately, while the U.S. generally honored the Convention, neither Japan, which never signed the agreement, nor Germany, which chose to ignore it, did. Fort Crowder - Wikipedia 10 0 obj In one incident, Black servicemen were barred from entering a restaurant at a Texas train station while POWs were invited inside to dine with their white captors. A few Italian prisoners even worked in the St. Louis Ordnance Depot on North Broadway, handling nonexplosive freight after their country switched sides in the war. June 16, 1945 The day German POWs escaped their camp near St. Louis. Pfc. in Newton and McDonald counties. Camp Weingarten. Taylor and his fellow soldiers, most of whom were assigned to military police companies, maintained a busy schedule of guarding the prisoners held in the camp, but also received opportunities to take leave from their duties and visit their loved ones back home. Others were confined in small outposts such as Hellwig Brothers Farm, near U.S. Highway 40 on the Missouri River bottomland then known as Gumbo Flats. In Kansas, according to Smithsonian Magazine, they stacked hay and did masonry. 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.. Camp Weingarten quickly grew into a sprawling facility to house Italian POWs brought to the United States and, Jefferson City resident Carolyn McDowell explained, was the site where one of her uncles spent his entire period of service with the U.S. Army in World War II. Interestingly enough, no marriages were a direct result of the prisoners time in Missouri. The photo was taken in March 1945, shortly after radio . Shortly after Taylor received assignment to Camp Weingarten, Italian prisoners of war began to arrive at the camp in May 1943. As noted by the Library of Congress, among the many protections and guarantees provided to POWs were adequate food, housing, and medical care, "protection from violence, intimidation, insults, and public curiosity," prohibition against medical experimentation, and reciprocal military rights and status. About 500 American soldiers were assigned to guard 3,600 Italians at the camp. Military History and POW Camp - Bushwhacker Museum My uncle then gave the cigarette case as a gift to my father, who was living in Jefferson City at the time and working as superintendent of the tobacco factory inside the Missouri State Penitentiary, stated McDowell. Blacks in the military expressed outrage that, after risking their lives fighting Nazis, they were considered beneath their white enemies back home. Out of the ruins of fascist defeat, the U.S. and its allies hoped to plant the seeds of democracy. A number of prisoners of war did later return as immigrants and about a dozen of those immigrants settled in St. Louis. Post-Dispatch photo, German POWs on a "boat camp" in the St. Louis area play chess and relax on the deck in 1945. The camp, located south of Neosho, Missouri, was established in 1941. 300 German POWs were interned at the Fond du Lac County Fairgrounds from June to August 1944 while they harvested peas on local farms and worked in canneries. In what must have been one of the bizarre coincidences of World War II, Hennes was a prisoner at the same camp as his father, Friedrich Hennes. Seriously underwater., Neman: Missouri womans saga of trying to find common sense at Walmart, I can still hear the roaring of the engine, says father of teen maimed in downtown St. Louis. As the NKPA retreated farther north, they were forced to evacuate their prisoners with them. Conran Missouri WWII POW Camp Conran - YouTube Recaptured: Roanoke, Va. Largest all-new prisoner of war compound ever constructed on American soil. endobj The majority of the camps were located in the Midwest, South, and Southwest, and the biggest contingency of POWs 372,000 were German. According to theSociety for Military History, because the Geneva Convention limited how differently one POW could be treated from another, camp authorities initially made "no distinction between ideologically hardened prisoners and those who are 're-educated.'" 5 0 obj McDowell notes the cigarette case is not only a beautiful piece that serves as a link to the past, but represents a story to be shared of the states rich military legacy. When returning to camp, one of the POWs with whom Taylor had established a friendship was given the pie pan and used it to demonstrate his abilities as an artist and a craftsman by fashioning it into a cigarette case. 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. Sub camps:Camp Pine, Camp Thornton and Camp Skokie Valley, each with 200 POWs. Now called Dennis Whiles, Gaertner told Jean he had been raised in an orphanage, thus eliminating any questions about his family. The last German POWs didnt head home until 1946. WWII POW Camp In ConranThere was a prisoner of war camp located in Conran just off of Highway 61. They decorated their barracks with their work. endobj Post-Dispatch file photo, The chow line on a boat camp at St. Louis in 1945. 6U z*&`873 hkg7*I|dx^EY?IF$zwUJH!/V>H>is&n /t; As author David Fiedler explains 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. Sunday, Dec. 11, marks 75 years since the United States declared war on Germany and Italy. The complex, serviced by a spur of the Kansas City Southern Railroad, included a main manufacturing facility, an engine testing area (ETA) for the live fire testing of rocket engines, a component testing area (CTA), and a former Camp Crowder warehouse, Building 900, as a warehouse and later engine overhaul and manufacturing. UT POW CD. Last chance! The, This camp had a guard fire on and kill several German prisoners. List of World War II Prisoner-of-war Camps in The United States Camp Weingarten, MO Most of these POWs were transferred from Camp Roswell, which was a base or main POW camp for New Mexico. The camp buildings are preserved in. June 16, 1945 The day German POWs escaped their camp - STLtoday It is a beautifully crafted cigarette case, but the irony of it all is that my father never smoked, she jokingly added. Black soldiers experienced institutionalized discrimination both at home and overseas, and their prejudicial treatment occurred at the hands of not only white Americans but white POWs as well. At the same time, stories about Nazi violence and influence in the POW camps were beginning to circulate. Originally, when the government agreed to bring them here, they were concerned about security, Fiedler said. In the United States, at the end of World War II there were 175 Branch Camps serving 511 Area Camps containing over 425,000 prisoners of war (mostly German). This was not seen as a standing thing., The government realized early on that these men were not a threat of escape or destruction or other nefarious deeds, Fiedler said. Although the total number of escape attempts from U.S. camps was proportionately low, according to Humanities Texas, some POWs did try. A 120 feet (37m) nearly completed escape tunnel was discovered by authorities. Post-Dispatch file photo, The front gate of the POW camp at Hellwig Brothers Farm on Gumbo Flats, part of the Missouri River bottomland in St. Louis County. Click here to learn more or join our conversation. Camp Weingarten, Missouri. About 2,600 German POWs were held there during World War II. According toHumanities Texas, many in America, especially farmers, were loathed to see them go. Fort Crowder was a U.S. Army post located in Newton and McDonald counties in southwest Missouri, constructed and used during World War II. [7]:272. Jean Shepherd featured many stories of his time at Camp Crowder in various monologues. Two escaped. Although some in Congress decried this apparent "coddling" of the POWs, the War Department, as noted by HistoryNet, remained confident that news of the benefits enjoyed by the POWs would reach Germans still fighting overseas and encourage their surrender. 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. After the war it became a men's dormitory for. The Enemy Among Us: POWs in Missouri During World War II. Hollywood movies and cartoons were screened. 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. Some even "started to enjoy the novelty.". Pike County Missouri - POW Camps 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. From 1942 to 1945, more than 400,000 Axis prisoners were shipped to the United States and detained in camps across the nation. About 15,000 of them were sent to 30 camps scattered across Missouri. Also the site of training for "The Ritchie Boys", European refugees trained there to go back into Germany and sabotage the war effort. Around Geneseo. POW Camps in the USA POW Camps in Missouri. jmNR0|mD4wB6.B5 _7w!! The camp was made up of 450 prisoners from Germany and Aus. Genevieve Camp Crowder near Neosha Camp Clark near Nevada Attached to these main camps were branch camps to which they sent prisoners. <> Camp Crowder was a military installation named in honor of Major General Enoch H. Crowder, provost marshal of the United States during World War I and author of the 1917 Selective Service Act. No Japanese prisoners were interned in Missouri. 1942-1945: held Japanese-American internees, and then German and Italian POWs. The U.S. government initially did not separate what Fiedler referred to as dyed-in-the-wool Nazis, who were committed to the National Socialist movement under Adolf Hitler. With a weekly newsletter looking back at local history. 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. Although America's treatment of POWs earned high marks from most German prisoners, its repatriation policy was widely criticized. As that took place, about 2,000 acres (8.1km2) of the post was turned over to the U.S. Air Force as a buffer zone around Air Force Plant 65, a government owned-contractor operated liquid propelled rocket engine manufacturing facility operated by the Rocketdyne division of North American Aviation. By the war's end, the average reached 60,000 POWs per month. POWs mounted theatrical productions and played concerts. Most of the POWs went to large camps, including one covering 960 acres near Weingarten in Ste. A walled patio and fireplace with masks of Comedy and Tragedy were built near the theater and are still landmarks on the university campus. As noted in American Reeducation of German POWs, 1943-1946, in discussions with their guards, prisoners would sometimes use America's discriminatory practices as a "what about" counter argument. The majority of escapees were captured quickly and without incident. Missouri figured into this equation, housing some 15,000 prisoners of war from Germany and Italy inside state lines. Genevieve, Missouri, A former CCC camp it was used for POWs who were with Rommel's Afrika Corps. In Southern POW camps, some facilities were segregated by race, and Black servicemen were given the worst jobs. According to American Reeducation of German POWs, 1943-1946, as the war dragged on and U.S. casualties mounted, stories about cushy POW camp life and vicious crimes committed by Nazis prisoners enraged many Americans. Trichloroethylene contamination in soils and groundwater has been documented at the site and may include off-site contamination in a number of private wells. Prisoners of war did basic farm work such as harvesting corn or potatoes. Genevieve County in June 1943. Now a fraction of its WWII size, the camp currently has a full-time staff of 11 employees a sharp . xwcy[9R^Z hF/!\Zf7!%% Sent to a camp in Colorado, he asked for and was granted a transfer to Crossville. First attempted escape by two German POWs on 5 November 1942. This document is not available online. q2JShr6 People didnt get in the car and drive 75 miles: it was a locally-focused world. With a weekly newsletter looking back at local history. The caption information from 1945 does not identify the boat as the one on the Missouri River, near today's Chesterfield, or the one at the foot of Arsenal Street. Other citizens wrote angry letters to the editor and staged protests. Some camps had printing presses that churned out newsletters penned by POWs. A few continued into the early 1970s in Las Animas County where Trinidad is located. During the 1970sthe Rev. POW Death Index in US. Used a railroad box car. Gaertner stayed under the radar for years, and eventually the authorities stopped looking for him. Post-Dispatch file photo, Three Italian POWs paint and draw during free time at Camp Weingarten in June 1943. You may come to the Missouri Valley Room to view it or request a photocopy from the Library's Document Delivery service. "During one of my uncle's visits back to Alton, he asked his mother for an aluminum pie pan," McDowell said. 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. stream endobj Only one escaped entirely. As chronicled by AP, on a September night in 1945, POW Georg Gaertner escaped from New Mexico's Camp Deming by slipping under a fence and hopping a train bound for San Pedro. Kansas City-Area Camps. By 1943 the army had acquired 42,786.41 acres (173.2km2), 66.9 sq. Access Conditions . German POWs march into the mess hall at their small work camp on the Hellwig Brothers Farm on Gumbo Flats, the Missouri River bottomland now called Chesterfield Valley, in March 1945. endobj In the years after the war, McDowell said, her mother kept the cigarette case tucked away in a chest of drawers but since both of her parents have passed, she now believes the historical item should be on display in a museum. List of World War II prisoner-of-war camps in the United States The base's movie theatre was disassembled and reassembled on the campus of what is today the University of Missouri Kansas City where it was the University of Kansas City Playhouse until being torn down for a new theatre. Camps in the St. Louis area included Gumbo Flats in the Chesterfield Valley, Jefferson Barracks, riverboats, and an Ordinance Depot in Baden. Kelly Moffitt joined St. Louis Public Radio in 2015 as an online producer for St. Louis Public Radio's talk shows St. Louis on the Air. In the United States at the end of World War II, there were prisoner-of-war camps, including 175 Branch Camps serving 511 Area Camps containing over 425,000 prisoners of war (mostly German). From this branch camp, the POWs did mostly farm labor, from 1943 to 1946. Arcadia Publishing. Groundwater and soil contamination has been identified in various areas of the base's original property boundaries. The Enemy Among Us : POWs in Missouri During World War II After completing his initial training, he was designated as infantry and became a clerk with the 201st Infantry Regiment. Despite the challenges of overseeing the internment of former enemy soldiers, the camp experienced few security incidents and conditions remained rather cordial, in part due to the sustenance given the prisoners. Italys surrender in 1943 changed the status of the Italian POWs, who remained here but were granted more freedom, including occasional trips to the Hill neighborhood. Close to Fort Lincoln and held over 5,000 soldiers. Fiedler recounted the tale of one Italian gentleman who, after he returned to his home country, wrote to a farmer he worked for in Sikeston remarking on how much he liked working with him. Photo by Jack Gould of the Post-Dispatch, Two Italian POWs hang out their laundry at Camp Weingarten in June 1943. They slipped past the guards at night and fled through the vegetable fields they tended. % 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. Copyright 2017 Vernon County Historical Society - All Rights Reserved. In "Icons of Insult: German and Italian Prisoners of War in African American Letters During World War II," author Matthias Reiss recounts numerous instances of racist encounters involving white Americans and POWs. Leisure activities included Ping-Pong, chess, and card games. And it was the Germans, Nazi and non-Nazi, who defined camp life more than any other group of captives. |-T'T5Z Early on, however, that wasnt always the case. "Established at Weingarten, a sleepy little town on State Highway 32 between Ste. In the early 1950s, local congressman Dewey Jackson Short, (R-7th District of Missouri) senior member of the House Armed Services Committee secured authorization and initial funding to build two permanent barracks and a disciplinary barracks and reactivate the post as a permanent installation, Fort Crowder. Italian Farmer Held as a POW in Missouri During WW2 - warhistoryonline 6 & 7, Chesterfield, MO 63017. The majority of the camps were located in the Midwest, South, and Southwest, and the biggest contingency of POWs 372,000 were German. Cook, Williamsburg R.; Daniel J. Schultz (2004). The 3,600 prisoners planted tomatoes and took over cooking, attracting American guards with their spicy enhancements to GI fare. His hometown really wasnt all that far from Camp Weingarten, she added. ", When the first wave of POWs from Germany's elite Afrika Korps arrived in Mexia, Texas, the townspeople were dumbstruck, according toHumanities Texas. As noted in Humanities Texas, the first big batch of POWs arrived in the spring of 1943 following the surrender of Germany's Afrika Korps. Camp Scott held more than 600 German POWs from the Afrika Korps from late 1944 until the camp closed in November 1945. <> There were comparatively few Japanese prisoners of war brought to the United States during those years and none were held in Missouri. According to theSociety for Military History, the last batch of them 1,500 German prisoners sailed from New Jersey on July 26, 1946. endobj List of World War II prisoner-of-war camps in the United States. A few concrete ammunition bunkers are the last remnants of the POW camp.
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