Betty Cowley

This book was an eye-opener. My dad mentioned once that he had talked German with some prisoners at a local farm, but I never imagined the scale of Nazi prisoners-of-war interned in WI and throughout the US.
It's hard to make a scant record sound exciting, but Cowley did her best. After a few chapters giving an overview on why there were prisoners in WI, she devotes an individual chapter to each of the 32 camps. They each follow the same format: location, facilities, numbers of prisoners and guards, where they worked, how much the local employers paid the government to use them, and recollections of local people about these prisoners. Of course, some of it starts to sound repetitious if you are reading straight through. I'm guessing that unless a reader is a history buff, they are likely to check out camps in towns they know. OK, I did read it straight through, because I'm just curious about people's reactions to "the enemy" being in their midst. I don't know of any foreign prisoners being held in the United States since then. And these were unique times...many WI farmers were themselves of German ancestry and often still had someone in the family who still spoke the language. While recent veterans were upset at how well the prisoners were treated (we followed Geneva Convention standards) as compared to American's imprisoned by Germany, local farm wives often shared large lunches in the hopes that their good treatment would parlay into good treatment of our soldiers.
I was also interested to learn that after the prisoners were sent back to Europe they were often held by one of the European countries to work off a "debt" before being sent on to Germany. Some prisoners later applied for immigration here, and our fair treatment surely must have helped foster good relationships between our countries (as opposed to the bitter feelings of Germans after WWI).… (mere)

"Stalag Wisconsin: Inside WW II prisoner-of-war camps" is a comprehensive look inside Wisconsin's 38 branch camps that held 20,000 Nazi and Japanese prisoners of war during World War II. Most worked on farms, harvesting peas and other crops. Many of these prisoners blended with the local community, drinking at taverns and even dating local young women. Some returned and settled in Wisconsin after their release. Their familiarity with local residents caused resentment by returning soliders who had battled them in Europe and Asia. (Book Description)

"A retired history teacher... wrote her book... after her students said they didn't believe that their community once housed POWs." --USA Today, Jan. 28, 2002… (mere)