BY MARY ANN GROSSMANN
Pioneer Press, MN
While World War II raged, German prisoners of war lived in camps in Iowa and Minnesota while Midwestern soldiers and airmen were imprisoned in Germany.
Some of these prisoners' stories are told in "Behind Barbed Wire: Midwest POWs in Nazi Germany,'' a multi-media exhibit housed in a converted school bus that will be at the Sun Ray Branch Library, 2015 Wilson Ave., St. Paul, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday.
Exhibit sponsors are Friends of the St. Paul Public Library and TRACES, a nonprofit, Iowa-based educational organization dedicated to gathering, preserving and presenting stories of people from the Midwest and Germany or Austria who encountered each other during World War II.
Visitors to the "BUS-eum'' will be able to buy books published by TRACE, including a paperback exhibit catalogue. Other publications are "Only the least of me is hostage,'' two volumes detailing experiences of Midwest POWs in Nazi Germany; "Out of Hitler's Reach,'' stories of refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe who found refuge at the Scattergood Hostel in West Branch, Iowa; "Signs of Life: The Correspondence of German POWs at Camp Algona, Iowa, 1943-46,'' which includes letters to and from prisoners in some of Minnesota's 20 camps; and "Camp Papers: The German POW Newspapers at Camp Algona, Iowa 1944-46."