Thanks for the well-written article (March 8) by Jerome Meyer about the POW camps in Minnesota. Indeed, one camp was in Hollandale, and German prisoners came to my father’s farm to help harvest vegetables. Some arrived with a guard who carried a gun, but most arrived without a military escort. As a 9-year-old boy, I was somewhat fearful of these men, especially riding in a truck with them to and from the fields where we all worked together.

The Hollandale camp had 15 wooden buildings that looked like “cabins,” laid out in three rows of five housing units each. When the camp was abandoned after the war, the buildings housed migratory laborers from Texas in summer months. A tornado struck that camp a few years later, on a Sunday evening, picking up (and exploding) the centermost housing unit causing the death of five residents. It was like a horrible, gruesome war zone when I arrived, having skipped church to follow the ambulance to the scene.

Two prisoners from the POW camp near Owatonna escaped in the month of August, and the communication lines for such emergencies warned everyone to be on the lookout.  Later that night the escapees re-entered the camp and were interrogated about how they snuck got out and where they had gone. Reportedly they said, “We went to the county fairgrounds in Owatonna,” which at the time was called the “free fair” because no ticket was required for entrance.  I presume they enjoyed this part of Americana more than their work details.

 

Donald Draayer 

Minnetonka