History Lives - German WWII POW Camps in Michigan

[@dantalbot8795]

My mother who died in 2013 told us a story of carrying water to German POWs on an onion farm just outside of the small town of Munith Michigan.I wish now I had gotten more information on these prisoners.She said occasionally they would scare her and she would run away.There is not much information on these POWs.Thanks for posting this.

[@jerryprice5484]

When I was much younger, my brother had a friend who's dad worked full time in the MI Nat. Guard. Once he took us to Ft. Custer where I remember the old POW compound was still standing (1964) Later, when I was in the guard we used to hold weekend drills at Ft. Custer but by then the POW compound was gone. The military cemetery there has a number of Germans buried there. Most were killed in a tragic accident in which the truck they were riding in was hit by a train. This happened in 1946 after the war had ended.

[@shirleybalinski4535]

Read an article of POW'S working in the Frankenmuth area. They loved it. One guy was quota as saying that the Americans spoke our language! The woman cooked our native food. These guys worked in the farms in this heavily German area. The fellow stated that they attended church services & thought the local girls very pretty.

[@fg42t2]

Camp Mc Coy in Sparta Wis. had a POW camp . It had 4 sections German, Polish, Korean and Japanese ( the most Racist). One German escaped .and made it to Milwaukee where upon hearing a Polka being played he entered a bar and received a beating from the Polish men in the bar. Two Japanese escaped they went 30 miles west to the Mississippi were they made a raft to go to the Gulf. I believe they were captured by duck hunters in a shot time. Bob Benson

[@FREEDOMBELL-b9y]

My grandfather was a US infantryman at Camp Atturbery Indian. He said he guarded German POWs their.

[@micahnakihei9443]

Very intresting

[@joshuakunnen7650]

My grandma remembers the pow's at gerber baby foods. She talked how good looking alot of them were and how a couple escaped for like a night and were found at a near by farm.

[@d.4711]

Don't forget Eisenhowers Rheinwiesen Camps. Geneva Convention? millions of death😔

[@rudolfkraffzick642]

Those millions of death or killed enemies (ethnic Germans) occured mainly after the unconditional surrender and were a joint project of the allies, Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia. It was called punishment, teaching (reeducation) or revenge. The legal state of war ended only in 1951, between West Germany and Sovjetunion in 1955! Since millions of US-Immigrants were of German and Italian origin, it should be no surprise that the non fraternisation politics didn t work.

[@ligurian728]

i hope your book isn't as rambling and unfocused

[@crimony3054]

Practically speaking, it is better to have your wife cavorting with a respectful POW who will be gone after the war than with someone across town who won't. And no one knew who would survive the war anyway.

[@tonywilliams3728]

His guy is too tedious and boring