Скачать или смотреть The Human Side of American POW Camps in WWII

In the middle of a brutal world war, the enemy found mercy behind American barbed wire.

During WWII, more than 425,000 Axis POWs, mostly from the German army, were held in American POW camps across 46 states under the 1929 Geneva Convention. From Camp Algona, Iowa, to Fort McClellan, Alabama, prisoners who expected starvation and brutality instead received hot meals, medical care, and paid labor. Declassified U.S. Army reports reveal German POWs earning 80 cents a day, reading banned books, and even attending church with local Americans.

Firsthand diaries and postwar interviews describe shock, shame, and quiet transformation. Nazi propaganda collapsed not under bombs, but under humane treatment.

In a war defined by cruelty, compassion became America’s most unexpected weapon.