Season of My Enemy, page 28
He chuckled and opened his door. “A walk before dinner would please me. I’ve spent many hours sitting on that train.”
She walked around the car beside him, and for a moment they stood gazing out at the farm, the fields, the buildings, the corn drying on its stalks in the setting sun. Fall colors changed the leaves in the woods edging their land, and at this late time of day, the beauty of it all filled her up—or was it the realization that Wolf had stopped looking at the farm and was looking at her?
“Fannie, I am so grateful that your family has offered to sponsor me. Coming to your country was never my dream before.”
“What changed your mind?” Her heart pattered as his fingertips touched hers once again.
“You know the answer.”
His hand coiled over hers, and he drew her closer. Their forearms brushed together. His eyes, suddenly so blue, searched hers.
“For me?” The words came out on a breath.
“We have written about many things, but never the thing I wanted to say. Is it wrong of me to hope that your family will one day be more to me than hosts?”
“It is not wrong.”
“I have only just arrived, and we have not seen each other in so long a time. Still … is it wrong …” His Adam’s apple pulled upward, and they inched closer. “That I wish to kiss you?”
Her throat went dry. She gave a tiny shake of her head.
Wolf let go of her fingers and moved his hands up her arms. With a caress to her shoulders, he lowered his head. Gently, his lips met hers, growing from greeting to promise. Then he softly drew away, and the deep blue of twilight outlined his features, features she wanted to look at every day forever.
The screen door sang on its hinges into the evening. “Are you going to wait out there all night or come in and get some dinner while it’s still warm? Hello, Mr. Kloninger,” Patsy called.
Wolf grinned, and Fannie grinned back. “We’ll come now,” she said. “Any word from the hospital?”
“Nothing yet. I suppose that’ll take all night too.”
“Must be a boy,” Wolf said. “My mother says boys always take their time.”
“Does she? I would like to meet your mother.”
“One day, I would like that too.” He warmed her with another smile and reached for her hand. Together they followed Patsy into the house, where dinner and a new someday awaited.
AUTHOR NOTE
Thank you, dear reader, for allowing me to introduce Fannie and her family and for learning beside me about this fascinating aspect of WWII. So many of my friends have been interested in this story, and I appreciate each and every one who encouraged me to explore the history of the POW camps in my home state.
Growing up in Wisconsin, my school history lessons never taught about the prisoners held here during WWII. In fact, most of the records about those men and events were destroyed in the 1950s. Newspapers seldom printed word about them, and any information about the presence of enemy prisoners working in the Midwest’s agricultural industry was heavily censored at the time. If it weren’t for the research of author Betty Cowley in her 2002 book Stalag Wisconsin: Inside WWII Prisoner-of-War Camps, I might not have been able to write this story.
So why the secrecy and why the German POWs?
WWII was in its third year when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The United States immediately joined the Allies in declaring war. England was greatly relieved, since they had been basically on their own in fending off Hitler’s advances across Europe. However, rumors were rampant that Hitler intended to drop weapons to the several hundred thousand German prisoners of war being held in England. This created a panicky concern, so America agreed—somewhat reluctantly—to take any prisoners captured after November 1942 out of England and bring them to the States on empty U.S. Liberty Ships—the transport ships built to carry our soldiers to the fray in Europe and elsewhere.
The prisoners were brought stateside and spread across 156 “base camps” throughout the United States. Before it was over, America was housing over 371,000 Germans, along with 51,000 Italians, and 5,000 Japanese as well as other nationalities. Here in Wisconsin, the prisoners were sent to Fort McCoy, a former CCC camp (Civilian Conservation Corps), and they were called simply PWs.
It wasn’t until the prisoners were settled here and in places like Camp Custer (MI), and Camp Sheridan (IL) that the idea grew that the PWs could pay their own keep by helping with the severe labor shortage in the agriculture industry, a result of so many American men fighting overseas. The PWs could not be forced, according to international treaties of war, and they had to be paid in scrip the equivalent of eighty cents a day for their help. Soon “branch camps” were set up to bring the workers to communities where their help was needed. Wisconsin, a state with one-third German population, had thirty-eight of those branch camps. There was one in my hometown of Wisconsin Rapids, though I didn’t learn of it until last year.
The camp at Barron was real. Camp Barron was one of the most northern camps in Wisconsin. However, from there, my story is fictionalized, starting with the fact that I brought my PWs there a few weeks earlier than they actually arrived (July instead of August). In another timeline adjustment, while the song “Don’t Fence Me In” was indeed a hit among the camps across the country, die-hard ‘40s music fans might note that Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters recorded the song a few months after I had the prisoners singing it in my story. The song was written ten years earlier, but it didn’t sweep the national charts in the States until it was resurrected late in 1944 and sung by Roy Rogers in the film Hollywood Canteen and was then recorded by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters. Frank Sinatra came out with a popular rendition at the end of the year as well.
While some PWs didn’t believe that Germany was losing the war, there were never any reports of attempted sabotage by men at the camp nor of secret Nazi activity, as depicted in my work of fiction. Any prisoners who held true Nazi leanings were not permitted to work outside the camps and, in fact, were retained in special prison camps in other locations in the country. Usually, if a man with Nazi sympathies was in a camp, he was rooted out quickly for stirring up resistance (not unlike Leo in the story). At Barron, the prisoners went on strike twice, but both strikes ended quickly, first when a “no work, no eat” policy was put in place and the second time when tent flaps were lowered in the heat of summer.
Most of the men of the branch camps who were sent to work in the factories and fields were just as I described them—young men and family men, longing for their homes and for the war to end. They were glad to be out of the fight. According to Betty Cowley’s research, the men in Barron County alone supplied more than 50,000 man-hours of labor, and they earned over $48,000 for the U.S. government.
Some of the camps reported escapes. However, most escapes were day trips. Men wandered off and were picked up later enjoying an evening on the town or having a bite in a local establishment. Some had set out to meet with local girls, others to locate family members who resided in Wisconsin. Many prisoners did find sponsors and returned to settle in Wisconsin after the war, just as Wolf did.
Despite no real sabotage by German PWs recorded in Wisconsin, word of the camps and workers was kept as low-key as possible, as community feelings were mixed. Propaganda had created enough fear that sabotage was possible, and with so many families having lost sons and husbands to the war, there was enough hatred to go around.
In other historical aspects of the story, I was startled that Hitler actually did declare some Jewish blood “null” in order to keep his war machine operational. I decided to make my nemesis in the story a man who was not happy in his own skin and incorporate some of that unfortunate history. I felt that Leo’s story shows how racism can take many forms and is not limited to any particular creed or color.
The real story here is twofold. First, we are one race, the human race, and as Fannie pointed out to Liza, “There is really very little that separates any of us.” Second, along with the many women who turned their hands to planting and harvesting and working long shifts in the nation’s canneries, we can also credit the German prisoners held on U.S. soil during WWII with helping to save the crops during that final year of the war when America’s own men were off fighting in Europe and in the Pacific. In ways that couldn’t have been guessed at, they helped the Allies win the war.
For more information on the German PWs in WWII, I encourage you to look at my Pinterest board https://www.pinterest.com/nmusch/season-of-my-enemy/ and enjoy the photos, article links, and inspiration. You’ll even see an actual photo of some of the Camp Barron prisoners. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at naomimusch@naomimusch.com, and I also hope you’ll keep in touch by stopping by my website and signing up for my newsletter, Northwoods Faith & Fiction.
NAOMI MUSCH is an award-winning author who writes from a deer farm in the pristine north woods of Wisconsin, where she and her husband, Jeff, live as epically as God allows near the families of their five adult children. Season of My Enemy is her sixteenth novel. When not in the physical act of writing or spending time loving on her passel of grandchildren, she can be found plotting stories as she roams around the farm, snacks out of the garden, and relaxes in her vintage camper. Naomi is a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers; Faith, Hope & Love Christian Writers; and the Lake Superior Writers. She loves engaging with others and can be found all around social media or at naomimusch.com.
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Naomi Musch, Season of My Enemy
