SYCAMORE — Many people are surprised to learn Sycamore once was home to German prisoners of war, but many longtime residents have fond memories of the men brought here to work in the fields and canning factory.
The World War II POW camp was the subject of a talk by Derrick Burress at the Sycamore History Museum on Wednesday, June 27. Burress, the principal at Kishwaukee Education Consortium, said his interest in the camp developed as the result of a local history project he was required to undertake while studying history at Northern Illinois University.
"About 400,000 prisoners of war came to America," Burress said. "The reason is that our boys were fighting a war in Europe and there was no one here to do the work."
Most POWs worked in farm fields, on dairy and livestock farms and in canning factories. At the Sycamore Preserve Works, Burress said between 30 and 60 men were shipped from Rockford's Camp Grant picked and canned sweet corn, peas and asparagus.
The camp was located on property now owned by Upstaging on Park Avenue in Sycamore. It consisted of officers' barracks, a mess hall, a recreation hall and several tents for the prisoners.
Residents who lived in Sycamore at the time remember the prisoners singing in German everywhere they went. They ate at a cafe on State Street, where Goin' Postal is located today, and they attended services on Sundays at either St. Mary's or Salem Lutheran Church.
"All of us just used to get a kick out of watching them," Bill Lenschow said. "They were just wonderful to us as kids."
No matter where they went, they were accompanied by armed guards.
Several residents said that their parents told them to stay away from the camp and the prisoners themselves when they saw them in public.
"We used to walk or bike right up to the camp," Gene Listy said. "We were always told we couldn't, so of course that was the first thing we tried to do."
Burress said the guards were just as interested in learning about Europe from the prisoners as the prisoners were in learning about America, "where the streets were paved with gold." Although all the prisoners were shipped back to Europe after the war, Burress said many returned to the country that had shown them such compassionate treatment.
"Unlike a lot of other prisoner of war camps, Sycamore didn't have one escape attempt," Burress said.
Shaw Media reporter Jeff Engelhardt contributed to this report.
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