German Life as a POW

[vonStubben]

http://allday.com/post/8474-the-forg...s-during-wwii/

[Nische]

Very interesting, both the story and the photos. Thank you for posting.

[Ed.Anderson,Jr.]

Some items to add...

[Ed.Anderson,Jr.]

Tropical Helmet, acquired wo/insignia.

[vonStubben]

Thanks for adding to the post. There was a POW camp in Owatana, Minnesota where my Mother in laws sister lived. After the war she purchased property and opened a motel using brand new barracks used to house German POWs. The name of this hotel is "Wildwood" and it's located about 35 to 50 miles south of Minneapolis on one of the major hi ways. My wife spent some time living in one while visiting as a child.

[Brig]

I've always found this topic very interesting. I use to live in Pine Grove Furnace, PA, and heard there had been such a camp there, but never could determine exactly where.

In high school, I had a buddy whose grandfather had been in the Wehrmacht and became a POW in Africa. Another buddy in our group had a grandfather who had guarded POW camps in the US. Led to some amusing discussions

My buddy whose grandfather was a guard use to wear a crude silver ring with his initials on it, but it was quite obviously much older than us. When we asked him about it, he told us an interesting and amusing story

His grandfather had been in the Army with Motor T in WWII. During training, before he could ship over, the truck he was in had an accident and he hurt his back to an extent that prohibited him from being sent overseas. He was assigned as a guard at one of these POW camps. The camp was split into essentially two sub camps, the area for the standard Wehrmacht soldiers, and an area for the fanatics...SS, political prisoners, etc. The camp was understaffed at first, and the priority was of course the fanatics, so more of a skeleton crew oversaw the typical soldiers. My buddy's grandfather was one of them

The Germans evidently had a habit of making jailhouse hooch, presumably from potato skins acquired during kitchen details. Many prisoners were allowed to work outside the camp. Either the employers didn't observe the rules about not paying the soldiers directly, or the troops picked up change on the streets, but somehow they managed to save up some scratch over a period and, when they had enough and the hooch was ready, they got liquored up and broke through one of the fences and headed to town. My buddy's grandfather got a call at the office of the camp and was told by the local manager at the movie theater that he had some of his friends there.

Heading to the theater, he found several "escaped" POWs, drunkenly laughing and watching the film, the locals evidently unconcerned. He rounded them up and took them to a diner, got them coffee to sober up, and took them back to base, where they took it upon themselves without prompting to start repairing the fence.

One POW had been a jeweler or silver smith before the war, and had squirreled away some silver, presumably from coins, and when they were sent home after the war, presented my buddy's grandfather with a crude ring with his initials on it, I assume for his kindness during their time at the camp. My buddy happened to have the same initials, and inherited the ring from his grandfather.

Couple of things about the story have struck me as odd. POWs generally got movies in the camp, perhaps they didn't at that one. POWs were not allowed to be paid, but they squirreled away some. Unfortunately my buddy's grandfather had passed so we couldn't hear it from him, the story is how my buddy remembered it. Real or embellished, I thought it was a pretty amusing tale

[saar]

Thank you for posting. These stories is always a good read.

[compressore]

U-Boat

Our neighbour was a POW in a camp in Florida.
He told me that they used to catch turtles, carved swastika on the shell and let them run in the camp....the commanding officer was not amused!
I don't know if true but even this is 40 years ago I can still remember how he chuckled.
But also he talked very good about how they were treated, not a single bad word.
He said too that he was very happy to be a POW already at this time as he saw his survival chance as very low as being a mate on an U-Boat.

[colt45s]