Between 1943 and 1946 more than 6000 German prisoners of war passed through a camp in northern Maine -Camp Houlton – and spent their time cutting wood, harvesting potatoes, and cutting ice. For many of the POWs, and the local residents, this was an unforgettable experience, and after an initial period of suspicion , the Germans and their American captors bonded.
Recently, four surviving POWs returned to Maine for a visit, and a group of local high school kids made a documentary film – "Don’t Fence Me In" -about their return and the history of the camp.
A student-made documentary has preserved
memories of four German prisoners of war who attended a reunion last
September in this northern Maine town where they spent time during
World War II. The documentary, "Don’t Fence Me In," was produced by
eight students from the video production class at the Caribou Regional
Techology Center. Its premiere at the education center at Houlton
Regional Hospital on Sunday, the 60th anniversary of D-Day, drew
residents from throughout Maine.One of the POWs featured in the video was Rudy Richter, who was a
teenager when he enlisted to fight for his German homeland. He was
captured and held at the Houlton camp from 1944 to 1946.After his return to Germany, Richter searched the bombed-out ruins
of his hometown but was unable to find the home he once shared with his
parents. When he stopped an old man on the street to ask for
directions, he didn’t realize until a few seconds later that he was
talking to his own father. And his father did not recall the boy who
had left years earlier and returned a man.The students spent nearly a year making the film, which included
interviews with the former POWs who returned for the reunion organized
by the Houlton Historical Society."When we got to the camp, we helped pick potatoes and got paid a
few cents per barrel," Richter recounted on video. "We used most of our
money to buy books, candy and cigarettes."
Richter’s experience as a POW in America was not unique. Many of the prisoners at camps throughout the US were afforded the opportunity to study and pursue cultural activities.
The most interesting and far-reaching camp program was its educational
curriculum. The question of classroom facilities was first raised by the
inmates themselves almost immediately after arriving in camp. The camp
authorities saw no reason to prevent the men from studying, especially since
English was the subject most eagerly sought, and after receiving the
authorization from the War Department, they set up classes in every camp.
Since a large number of the prisoners had been civilian teachers, carpenters,
watchmakers, lawyers, mechanics, bank clerks, and the like, the POW camps had
a large reservoir of talent upon which they could draw to teach the classes.
The prisoners elected a Study Leader, who was responsible for establishing
the camp’s educational curriculum, and by the end of 1943, literally every
large camp in America boasted courses in English, Spanish, German literature,
shorthand, commerce, chemistry, and mathematics. As faculty made themselves
available, camps were able to offer unique courses to their populations. At
Camp Clinton, Mississippi, for instance, prisoners were offered courses in
the history of the American Indians, Chinese culture, and the plants of the
United States. At Camp Crossville, Tennessee, POWs were given piano lessons,
and at Camp Campbell, Kentucky, they could even take a course on the
symbolism of the American Funnies. Reinhold Pabel recalls:At Camp Ellis, Illinois, I decided to take full advantage of the educational
facilities which were provided.I got together with some other linguistically inclined men for small classes
in foreign languages. Among others, we purchased a Persian Linguaphone Course
and learned enough to be able to read and listen to excerpts from the
Rubaiyat in the original. I concentrated my efforts finally on Russian and
completed two correspondence courses in that language with the University of
Chicago Extension Division. Sometime later, I conducted two Russian courses
for beginners for my fellow prisoners, making up my lessons myself and
mimeographing them for class use.
That was a different time in a different America. The confirmation hearings on Alberto Gonzales are a stark reminder that Americans today are perfectly willing to engage in abusive interrogation techniques "tantamount to torture" (International Red Cross) of its prisoners. In an Op/Ed piece in today’s Washington Post Anne Applebaum – our best authority on prison camps – notes:
If the pictures haven’t gone away, the value system that led to Abu Ghraib hasn’t gone away either. Last month — really recently
— lawsuits filed by American human rights groups forced the government
to release thousands of pages of documents showing that the abuse of
prisoners at Guantanamo Naval Base long preceded the Abu Ghraib
photographs, and that abuse has continued since then too. U.S. soldiers
in Iraq and Afghanistan have, according to the administration’s own
records and my colleagues’ reporting, used beatings, suffocation, sleep
deprivation, electric shocks and dogs during interrogations. They
probably still do.
Can we imagine the prisoners at Guantanamo returning for a nostalgic visit, if they are ever released?
