The Artistic Side of the War

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You may remember when I went to Camp Breckenridge a couple of years ago and how I fawned over the artwork on the walls of the one building left standing from the time it was a POW camp. It’s amazing to see the artistic side of things from World War II. My trip to Aliceville, Alabama today was to go through their museum devoted to the time when Aliceville had a large (over 6,000) German POW population incarcerated there. As usual, I found it amazing. As usual, the POWs told stories of how well they were treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention (the museum curator said about the only “violation” of the Geneva Convention that the Americans participated in was subtle propaganda, although the way they were treated was “propaganda” enough in itself). Camp Aliceville mostly housed officers and non-commissioned officers, who by the laws of the Geneva Convention weren’t required to work. However, some of them did, working in farms picking cotton and peanuts. They were paid for the work, too, with half of their salary put in a “trust fund” for them to use when the war was over and they were repatriated. Now, with a lot of free time, the prisoners had to amuse themselves. And, as was the case in a number of the other camps I’ve visited, they did that with art. You can see some of the artwork that has survived over eighty years. The upper left is one of my favorites: a POW saying “I’ve had enough” and walking over the barbed wire. (In reality, escapes were rare because one, they were thousands of miles from Germany; and two, they were treated better here as prisoners than they were as soldiers in their own army!) That’s a cute caricature. The upper right is the camp newspaper, Der Zaungast, which translates to “The Fenced Guests.” The curator showed me some of the cartoons that appeared in some of the camp newspapers, indicating that the soldiers had quite the sense of humor. In the lower left, you see a ship that one of the prisoners made as a gift to one of the guards. This wasn’t uncommon: there were a number of the panels like the one in the upper left that were inscribed on the back with good wishes from the prisoner who made them. (With limited English, the inscriptions were funny, such as a new year wish “to you and your wife anyway” instead of “as well.” ) Finally, there’s a chess set made by one of the prisoners. They aren’t as detailed as some of the more elaborate sets I’ve seen, but it’s still quite remarkable handiwork! Yes, I had a great time visiting the museum today.