Exhibit on German POWs in Maine

If you are visiting the Great State of Maine this fall you'll want to stop by the Holocaust and Human Rights Center in Augusta to learn about a forgotten chapter in local history.  Starting in 1945 thousands of German prisoners of war were detained in a network of camps located in the northern rural areas of Maine.  Their story is told through photographs and documents at an exhibit:

AUGUSTA – The Holocaust and Human Rights Center (HHRC) of Maine has
created an exhibit focusing on the history and artifacts from Maine’s
P.O.W. camps between 1944 and 1946. The exhibit, Maine Boys Overseas,
German Boys in Maine, brings together artifacts, historical documents,
and a film from a variety of Maine sources.

In early February, 1944, Maine Second District Congresswoman Margaret
Chase Smith revealed that the War Department had made plans to send
German prisoners of war to Maine to work on lumber projects. A month
later, Senator Ralph Owen Brewster announced that 2,500 German POWs had
been assigned to Maine and would be housed at a camp near the Houlton
airfield, and possibly other locations.

This was a different era, and these camps were no Guantanamo-like torture and isolation centers.  Rather, the prisoners were put to work for the potato harvests or worked in lumber camps and on road crews. A number of prisoners were even allowed to take correspondence courses through the University of Maine.

A number of former POWs look back fondly on their time in Maine and over the years have made pilgrimages back to the places of their incarceration. It is hard to imagine that would ever happen at Gitmo.