Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009

A glimpse into local history

I finally did something I have been intending to do. I recently visited the Museum of East Alabama at 121 S. Ninth St. in Opelika, Ala.

The museum has a display on Camp Opelika, a World War II prisoner-of-war camp. I had known of the camp’s existence for a long time but had never researched it. Even now I don’t know a great deal, but the visit was an interesting look into the region’s history.

The success of our armed forces began to produce prisoners and they had to go somewhere. So a number of prisoner-of-war camps were established in almost every state in the U.S.

The East Alabama Museum has several booklets with copies of papers related to the local camp. One Army memorandum from Sept. 10, 1942, mentions establishing an Alien Enemy Internment Camp for 3,000 prisoners at Opelika.

An Aug. 31, 1943, memorandum of an inspection lists 3,012 prisoners at the camp and said the climate was good, except for two months of the year “when it is quite warm.”

The first prisoners arrived in June 1943 after the camp was activated in December 1942. Prisoners were segregated by rank. A prisoner orchestra provided entertainment. Nonetheless, this was a prisoner-of-war camp. The first prisoners came from north Africa. There are a few artifacts in the museum from the Afrika Korps. I admit that made the visit very real to me. Many later arrivals came from France.

Prisoners would work outside the camp for wages comparable to those paid locally. However, the prisoners could only receive 80 cents per day. The difference went to the U.S. government to defray costs associated with maintaining the camps.

Prisoners could purchase amenities with their earnings. They could also request a transfer to a different camp as long as they had a relative in the other camp and paid a fee to cover the cost.

After the war, the prisoners were repatriated to Germany, though a few stayed in touch with the community. Some even visited. According to documents, treatment was good compared to that handed out by other nations. Blame that on Southern hospitality or typical American decency.

After World War II the camp was used temporarily for veteran and family housing. Some veterans who attended Auburn University — then Alabama Polytechnic University — even lived there. The camp site is now an industrial park. One building remains of all the barracks, guard towers and general office buildings. The East Alabama Museum owns the building and hopes someday to be able to move it to their downtown location. My visit certainly was an interesting glimpse into local history. You just never can tell what you might find when you wander in a museum.

John M. House is a retired Army colonel who lives in Midland, Ga. His e-mail is housearmylife@aol.com.