Friday, January 22, 2010

POW exhibit open to public at PRCC

    POPLARVILLE - A traveling exhibit about German prisoners of war held in the United States will be on the Pearl River Community College campus in Poplarville on Monday.
    "Held on the Homefront" tells the story of the thousands of POWs housed in camps throughout the midwest from 1943 to 1946.
    The exhibit is housed in a specially-modified bus called a "buseum" and is sponsored by the TRACES Center for History and Culture in St. Paul, Minn.
    "Not a lot of people know, but Camp Shelby housed many German POWs during World War II," said Ronn Hague, director of the PRCC Museum. "And even fewer people know that German POWs played a large part in the construction of Lake Gieger at Paul B. Johnson State Park."
    POWS also were held at a dairy farm near present-day Anchor Lake in Carriere, he said.
    "Held on the Homefront" will be open from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday in front of the PRCC Museum in Hancock Hall. The PRCC Museum’s newest exhibit, Pearl River College Goes to War, will also be open.
    The exhibit’s stop at PRCC is sponsored by the PRCC Museum, Phi Theta Kappa honorary society, the Department of Humanities and the PRCC Development Foundation.
    The buseum will also be available for tours on Feb. 15 at PRCC’s Forrest County Center in Hattiesburg.