News-Info-Alerts

Re: German POWs on American Soil

From: POW-MIA InterNetwork

Date: November 13, 2003

"Programs To Explore Yankton's POW Past

By Nathan Johnson - nathan.johnson@yankton.net

The shadows of the past are sometimes so well-concealed that those who have lived among them are not aware of their existence until they are exposed in just the right light.

Dr. Michael Luick-Thrams had such an experience while studying the connections between the Midwest and World War II.

"My maternal grandparents brought a German POW to our farm. I played with his kids while growing up. It was only years later that I realized the significance. Like,"Wow, we had a German POW in our house!'"

This was only one fragment of the much larger picture Luick-Thrams has been trying to convey for more than a decade. As executive director of TRACES -- an American-German non-profit educational organization created to gather, preserve and present stories of people from the Midwest and Germany or Austria who encountered each other during World War II, he has brought to light many World War II stories of the Midwest that may otherwise have been forgotten.

Luick-Thrams will be in Yankton Nov. 16-17 to make several presentations on his work, much of which is first-person accounts and artifacts from both American and German WWII POWs. One of the many stories he will share took place in Yankton where approximately 100 German POWs resided here during a summer while doing a river project.

"I didn't know much about the POW camp in Yankton until recently," admitted Jim Scholtz, director of the Yankton Community Library, who, along with Dr. Richard Lofthus of Mount Marty College and Doug Sall of the Yankton County Historical Society, arranged for Luick-Thrams' visit.

The POWs stayed in the old Yankton municipal airport where just one guard was stationed at night to watch over them. Alois Broz, one of the guards, admitted that they probably weren't needed, said Scholtz, because there was really no place for them to go.

"In our case, it didn't have much social impact on Yankton because they weren't here long," Scholtz said.

Luick-Thrams said he has been touched by the general kindness farmers across the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa showed the POWs.

"That kindness won them a lot of friends among the POWs. It created lasting memories for these men that they carried back to Germany, and it totally defanged the propaganda they had been weaned on. That kindness had a lasting value."

Having grown up on a farm in Iowa and also having lived and studied in Germany for eight years, Luick-Thrams says he has connections to both cultures now.

"To hear the same war from different sides, that's been very impressive. You see how war takes on a life of its own. It's like a football game but with guns. I think what has made a deep impression has been documenting war from both sides and trying not to take a side."

The task isn't easy, he said.

"It's difficult but important. How do you get away from the emotionalism of war to study it? How do you study a war like you study molecular biology and grammar? You look at different components, control groups. You try to add influences and take them out. You literally try to study it like a science."

One aspect of WWII that has helped him maintain his neutrality is its distance.

"World War II is far enough away that for most of us there isn't the emotional baggage. It's not so far away that no one cares but, for example, I could not do this with the Iraq or Vietnam wars. It wouldn't work. World War II is the perfect war to study."

One of the most striking differences Luick-Thrams has found is how POW's from both sides of the war have reacted. Having endured much different experiences, he finds their reactions understandable.

"The German POWs really fell on their face after the war. When they began to admit what happened, they wondered: How did this happen? They had to do a lot of soul searching, and I have to say that I find something very sympathetic about that process. They started saying, ŒWhat did all of this nationalism bring us?' They became very critical of their own culture. Many of them were sickened by what their parents and grandparents did.

"With American POWs, they didn't do much soul-searching. Their experiences by and large in Germany were hell. Some Germans would give them food or clothes, but many would not. They sufferred occasional beatings, They were cold. They have a lot of anger, a lot of hurt. There's a lot of pain there, which is understandable."

Luick-Thrams will be doing a free multi-media presentation 3-4:30 p.m. Sunday at the Yankton Community Library titled "Hitler Comes to the Heartland: South Dakota's Connections to Nazi Germany." On Monday from 8:30 a.m.-10:30 a.m. he will present "Beyond Chalk and Talk: Bringing the Past to Life Through First-Person History," and from noon-1 p.m. he will deliver "Out of Hitler's Reach: The Scattergood Hostel for European Refugees, 1939-43" in the Roncolli Center of Mount Marty College. Books and videos will be on sale, and a display on the work of TRACES will be at the community library throughout November.

To learn more about TRACES exibits and work, visit their Web site at www.traces.org.

©Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan"