- Military - Janesville Sesquicentennial
-
- City camp housed POWs
- Janesville played host to some very different guests during
the summers of 1944 and 1945 -
- German prisoners of war.
- Camp Janesville, the POWs' home, was established June 20,
1944, as a branch camp of Camp
- Grant in Rockford, Ill.
- The camp was open only during the summer when the 250 prisoners
were employed by canning
- factories in the area. During the rest of the year, the POWs
were transferred to other camps in the southern United States.
- Camp Janesville was located at the corner of Crosby and Western
(now Rockport Road) avenues.
- The camp consisted of about 125 army tents and four wooden
buildings which housed sanitary facilities and showers, according
to army reports.
- Camp Janesville was surrounded by wire fencing and guardposts
at each corner. A vacant lot
- across from the camp was used as a soccer field for the prisoners.
- The first group of prisoners arrived from Camp Custer, Mich.,
in secrecy. According to Janesville
- Gazette reports at the time, the city knew it was to receive
prisoners, but the arrival date was not known.
- But word got around town when the POWs arrived and a small
crowd was on hand to see the
- prisoners unloaded at the rail depot.
- "Police and city workers immediately erected barricades
to prevent motor travel in the camp area,"
- the Gazette said. "Military officers have been ordered
to prevent citizens from speaking to prisoners and all possible
precautions are being taken to prevent any sort of demonstration."
- The prisoners, who had been captured in North Africa, worked
at several canneries in the
- Janesville area such as the Janesville, Elkhorn, Evansville
and Whitewater canning companies, and the LARSEN Canning
Co. in Fort Atkinson.
- The prisoners received 55 cents per hour for their work.
The Geneva Prisoner of War Convention
- required that POWs be paid for any work they did.
- A second group of prisoners, who had been captured during
the Normandy invasion, arrived in
- Janesville on June 23, 1945. Like the group the previous
summer, the prisoners worked in various canning factories and
fields in the area.
- According to Gazette articles, the prisoners often put in
long work days, not because they were
- forced to, but because they wanted to do a good job.
- All of the prisoners were enlisted men, and most were privates,
according to army reports. The
- prisoners were free to associate with each other, the Gazette
reported. "They are permitted a wide degree of freedom within
the confines of the camp," wrote one Gazette reporter.
- There were no reported escapes from Camp Janesville, according
to army reports, and very few
- disciplinary problems within the camp.
- Problems did occur, however, when local citizens tried to
see the prisoners. Visits were prohibited
- when "groups of spectators mingled around the camp and
projects," the army reported in the Gazette.
- When the camp closed Oct. 29, 1945, the prisoners had done
87,540 man hours of work for
- Janesville area canning companies.
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