My
dad remembers cherry picking with a friend and his immigrant parents
during the days of World War II in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin. The orchard
had a U-Pick arrangement, but too many cherries were left on the trees,
and prisoners of war picked up the slack. The friend’s father enjoyed
the chance to speak his native German with the half dozen young men
eating their lunch of dry bread and water.
Nearly
a half million prisoners of war spent time in the United States during
World War II. Prison camps were established at existing military bases,
abandoned Civilian Conservation Corps camps, and other facilities.
Wisconsin hosted thousands of them. Germans made up the vast majority of
prisoners, known as PWs. They stayed at base camps and seasonal branch
camps located predominantly in rural areas where they kept a low
profile.
 |
German prisoner of war camp with tents and fencing surrounding the area. |
 |
Others had barracks. German prisoners of war line up
for inspection before going to work at a local cannery.
|
Government
officials worried that local communities would object to having the
enemy in their midst, and the media cooperated with minimal coverage.
For the most part, the German PWs were welcome in Wisconsin, where one
third of residents claimed German ancestry.
Civilians
were warned against fraternizing with the prisoners. After all, until
recently they were, according to one newspaper, “killing our boys in
Normandy.” The proper attitude to take was to ignore them. Many
prisoners had relatives in Wisconsin, however, and many camps allowed
visits once a month. Fences surrounding the camps, ostensibly to keep
prisoners in, served to keep out sight-seers and unwanted visitors.
Teenage girls especially tried to sneak in, causing camp commanders the
biggest problem. On the other hand, the townspeople were encouraged to
extend hospitality to the guards.
The
Germans were welcome because they filled the critical agricultural
labor shortages resulting from the draft or from people migrating to
better paying industrial jobs. With seasonal workers impossible to find,
the PWs saved the crops. They harvested beans, peas, tomatoes, berries,
cherries, apples, cabbage, beets, cranberries, oats, and hay. They
worked in canneries, dairies, state forest nurseries, tanneries, and a
fox farm. They received eighty cents a day, earning about nineteen
dollars a month, while an American enlisted man started at twenty-one
dollars a month.
Three German prisoners of war are scrubbing their clothes on the
cement floor of their barracks at a prisoner of war camp.
Security
among the different work places varied widely. Sometimes guards rode
along to work, sometimes not. Guards with sub-machine guns watched the
prisoners at a canning factory. At others, guards might not be present
and then with only a sidearm. One guard at a dairy co-op routinely lay
down his rifle and took a nap, counting on the PWs to wake him if an
officer showed up. The military adopted a “calculated risk” policy,
allowing individual farmers to pick up a hired hand or two for the day
with no security at all. Civilians and PWs worked side by side in some
establishments, the only difference being the PW painted on the
prisoners’ clothing.
The Geneva Convention required prisoners to be fed and housed equal to the host country’s military.
The American government complied, hoping their good treatment of
prisoners would be reciprocated. The meat served included less desirable
cuts, like carp, pickled herring, and liver. With the end of the war
and release of American prisoners, the quality and quantity of food
declined. Farmers often invited their PW workers to eat with the family
and hired help, believing their sack lunches of a marmalade sandwich or
black bread and lard sandwich to be insufficient for the hard work on
the farm. The home-cooked meals were much appreciated.
Eating
sweet corn was unheard of in Germany. Corn was for pigs. When served
corn, the PWs refused to eat it until an American would heartily dig in.
One by one, the prisoners would try it, and then they couldn’t get
enough and asked for seed to take back to Germany.
Whenever
the Germans marched from the train to the camps, or from camp to a work
place, they sang, as opposed to the Americans calling out cadence. Some
locals criticized that practice, claiming the Nazis wouldn’t treat
American prisoners as well. Others enjoyed hearing the singing, and
often loitered outside the camps to hear them sing during free periods.
Towns would be polarized over their “guests” and reporters were invited
to tour the camps to see that the prisoners were not being coddled.
A work shift of German prisoners at a prisoner of war camp marching
to trucks to be conveyed to work at a local cannery.
Most
of the prisoners were conscripts who didn’t necessarily know why they
were fighting. Ranging in age from fifteen to sixty-three, they looked
forward to work details and were easy to get along with. Those who
arrived in the U.S. through New York were surprised to be greeted by the
Statute of Liberty. They’d been told the Luftwaffe had bombed New York
City and Washington.
A
minority were hard-core Nazis, usually captured in North Africa from
Rommel’s elite Afrika Korps. Still arrogant and believing they would win
the war, they admonished their countrymen to resist cooperating, even
killing some. They upbraided German Americans for not rising to the
defense of the Fatherland. The military removed these men from the
regular prisoners.
Many
prisoners wanted to stay in the United States, but that wasn’t allowed.
After they returned to Germany, several stayed in touch with their
American friends and came back to visit, and some were sponsored to
immigrate.
Do you know if prisoners were housed in your area?
Resources
My main source was Cowley, Betty. Stalag Wisconsin: Inside WWII Prisoner-of-War Camps. Oregon, WI: Badger Books Inc., 2002.
Photos from the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Emmalyn Ross is our girl and finds herself in a
sticky situation, getting stickier as the weeks go by. Her husband is due to
get out of prison in less than a year, and she hasn’t spoken to him in three
years. And there’s so much more to it! He loves me, he loves me not…plus, she’s
given up on their earlier dreams, and needs to find out if there’s anything
worth hoping for in the future. And will he even be there in her future? 
