Between 1943 and the end of the Second World War, Virginia was home to more than 40 POW camps. Historian Kathryn Coker says German and Italian prisoners of war crossed the Atlantic, because so many of the allied countries were occupied and Britain was already overwhelmed by soldiers captured in North Africa.
“They did not have the capability to feed those soldiers, so the British government asked Roosevelt, could we take some of these prisoners off their hands.," she explains.
At first, Coker says, Virginians were uneasy having Nazis in their midst, but they welcomed the extra manpower.
“With most of the able-bodied men fighting abroad, who was going to harvest the crops?” she wonders.
And during long commutes, farmers got to know these prisoners.
“Farmers would come to the camps to transport them to their farm. They weren’t supposed to form relationships, but they were dependent on us, and we were dependent on them, so relationships formed.”
The proof is in the stories Virginians later told and in one particular photo.
“You have a farmer and his two children and the two POWs standing behind the tractor smiling, so the farmer has no fears about his children being with the POW’s there.”
Under rules drafted at the Geneva Convention in 1929, education was required in the camps, and Coker says English was the most popular class. Once they had come to know farmers here and to speak their language, she adds, about one percent of the POWs -- 4,500 nationwide -- decided to settle in this country. Coker tells those stories in her book: Virginia POW Camps in World War II.
