Published: November 07, 2009 01:56 pm      

Traveling exhibit on POW camps to visit Waynoka

Did you know that Woods County during World War II served as a location for two camps for German prisoners of war (POW)?

A traveling exhibit about German POW camps by the TRACES Center for History and Culture in St. Paul, Minn., will visit the Waynoka Public Library from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday.

“It’s a traveling museum,” said librarian Carolyn Baird. “They use 10 narrative panels and films that tell about the POW camps from World War II.”

Baird said the exhibit was pertinent to Waynoka because of the POW camps in Woods County, including one that was located near Alva.

“The exhibit is trying to get to some of the states who had camps in them,” she said, noting that is why “They thought this would be a good place to do (a showing).”

Baird said there is a following of the history of the old POW camps because people are fascinated by the horrors that went on in the war.

“People are fascinated with the people in the camps,” she said, because “the POWs were German war criminals.”

According to information provided by Baird, by the end of WW II, about 425,000 German, Italian, and Japanese POWs found themselves imprisoned in more than 660 base and branch camps located throughout the the United States.

Millions more Axis and Allied POWs were held in other camps in Europe, the Soviet Union, Canada, Australia and Africa, she said.

The POWs in the United States -- roughly 372,000 of them -- harvested or processed crops, built roads and waterways, felled trees, roofed barns, erected silos, laid city sewers and constructed tract housing, she said.

They also washed laundry for the U.S. Army and performed other wartime tasks.

To learn more about life in the POW camps, visit the TRACES traveling museum at the Waynoka Public Library this Thursday from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. The library is located at 1659 Cecil St. in Waynoka.