- 28 Mar 2009 13:28
#1850900
As many of you know, I am an archivist for the Feds.
The other day I got a request from a newspaper to look up images of WWII POW camps in South Carolina. So, and was looking at a ton of those, most of them had German prisoners.
Anyway, this was was what I saw:
-Prisoners could beautify the grounds around their barracks. The landscaping was immaculate. Prisoners could lounge around on adirondack chairs out front, looking over the land.
-Prisoners could print their own prison newspaper, which it looked like they really got into.
-They were allowed to put on their own plays and concerts.
-They were allowed to have their own cooks and German food.
-They could play sports outside, like volleyball and soccar.
-They could take classes to learn a trade, English, etc.
-They were PAID for their labor (80 cents a day)
-They had their own px for prisoners (a picture of this Nazi with a deer in the headlights look with a carton of Pall malls made me lol).
It seems more like summer camp than prison. Of course, I wonder how typical such things were, since a good deal of the images in our repository were used for psy-ops. So does anyone know what it was really like to be a German POW?
I did a little reading on my own because I was so interested in the subject. Apparently, they weren't sent back until 1948, and even then, they had to work in other prisons for the Allies. Prisoners unfortunate enough to be captured in the USSR were literally worked to death, and hundreds of thousands died. Prisoners didn't trickle back from there until 1956.
So, I guess this all proves we Americans are pretty humane and awesome
The other day I got a request from a newspaper to look up images of WWII POW camps in South Carolina. So, and was looking at a ton of those, most of them had German prisoners.
Anyway, this was was what I saw:
-Prisoners could beautify the grounds around their barracks. The landscaping was immaculate. Prisoners could lounge around on adirondack chairs out front, looking over the land.
-Prisoners could print their own prison newspaper, which it looked like they really got into.
-They were allowed to put on their own plays and concerts.
-They were allowed to have their own cooks and German food.
-They could play sports outside, like volleyball and soccar.
-They could take classes to learn a trade, English, etc.
-They were PAID for their labor (80 cents a day)
-They had their own px for prisoners (a picture of this Nazi with a deer in the headlights look with a carton of Pall malls made me lol).
It seems more like summer camp than prison. Of course, I wonder how typical such things were, since a good deal of the images in our repository were used for psy-ops. So does anyone know what it was really like to be a German POW?
I did a little reading on my own because I was so interested in the subject. Apparently, they weren't sent back until 1948, and even then, they had to work in other prisons for the Allies. Prisoners unfortunate enough to be captured in the USSR were literally worked to death, and hundreds of thousands died. Prisoners didn't trickle back from there until 1956.
So, I guess this all proves we Americans are pretty humane and awesome