The Milan News-Leader
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Traveling exhibit to share history
Library to host bus filled with information, artifacts from WWII
By Sue G. Collins, Staff Writer
PUBLISHED: May 15, 2008
A new bus is rolling into town Saturday, bringing education, artifacts and insight about World War II prisoners of war from the upper Midwest.
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"Behind Barbed Wire" is an exhibit housed in a bus touring seven Midwest states this year and is stopping in from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday in Milan, providing a glimpse into the history of the region's soldiers.
Hosted by the Milan Public Library, the "BUS-eum" exhibit poses five primary questions:
•Why did some Midwest prisoners of war survive certain conditions or experiences while others did not?
•What roles did art, leisure time and religion play in helping those men who did survive imprisonment by the Nazi regime?
•Why did some Germans or Austrians assist Midwest POWs while others did not?
•How did the liberated POWs later come to terms with their own experiences?
•How do countries once in armed conflict?
"We are excited to bring the exhibit to Milan as a part of our ongoing programming for the children, families and adults in our area," said Milan Library Director Susan Wess. "Anyone interested in U.S. history will not want to miss this event Friday morning."
The free exhibit explores the experiences of Midwest POWs who were imprisoned in Hitler's Third Reich, and the human context in which their experiences took place.
The St. Paul-based, non-profit educational organization TRACES created the exhibit, housed in a converted school bus.
The exhibit consists of narrative display panels illustrated with photographs and documents, audio and DVD documentaries, artifacts and more.
The tour aims to bring the stories of Midwest POWs in Nazi Germany to life, especially for young people who otherwise see World War II history as far away and disconnected from their own daily life.
As the exhibit's first text explains, there were three main waves of Midwest POWs — those captured in North Africa in 1943, those pilots shot out of the sky during the air war over Europe and those soldiers captured at the Battle of the Bulge, near the war's end.
Each wave of Midwest POWs in Nazi Germany had its own experiences. All of the men who survived them, however, left a provocative legacy for those alive today — one involving the very nature of war itself; how does armed conflict between groups of people play out, face-to-face, when the guns are lowered; how should humans treat each other and, ultimately, live together?"
TRACES is a nonprofit educational organization created to gather, preserve and present stories of people from the Midwest and Germany or Austria who encountered each other during World War II.
For more information, call reference librarian Cathy Pense at the Milan Public Library, 439-1240.
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