My Discovery / Our Remembrance / Moving Forward Together
Talking about history no matter if it is good or bad is always the most honest and transparent way to go. There is little reason to keep the Glassboro German Labor Camp a secret especially since the Germans were not treated inhumanly and the Germans were not fanatical Nazi party members either. What I have discovered through my research is that sometime after World War II the town of Glassboro wanted to remember its war veterans by renaming streets after them and most recently with the veteran’s memorial in the new town square. These facts lead me to believe that one reason why Glassboro failed to talk about the German labors is because they did not want to overshadow the memory and memorials being constructed for their American veterans. Another possible reason could be that Glassboro did not want to draw attention to the camp immediately after the war since the camp was still being used as a labor camp for migrant workers. At the same time, after World War II some Americans still had resentment towards the Germans which might have played a factor in Glassboro’s decision not to talk about the labor camp as well.
No matter what the case was, I believe the time has come to move forward as an community in order to talk about and remember the roles that German laborers played in Americas war effort. I informally interviewed many people who live, work or visit Glassboro concerning Glassboro’s labor camp and most thought that a historical sign or memorial should be placed at the site of the labor camp or in the new town square as an education tool for others. Additionally, the people that I interviewed felt that the Glassboro Township website should discuss the history of the camp. The history of the German labor camp was important to Glassboro during World War II but it also was an important piece of America’s home front history during World War II. In several of my interviews people remarked that in recent years American’s discuss and are taught about the internment camps that were build for the Japanese citizens of America during World War II but then there is no method of German Labor Camp with in America. German Laborer’s on American farms argueably played just as an important role in the American war effort because they helped to grow much of the food that would be needed to keep the Allied men fed during the war. Likewise, the German labor camps actually helped America form a greater relationship with West Germany during the Cold War because America treated the German laborers with respect.
In the future, I hope that we discover new stories of the German labors who worked in America during World War II and that we remember them equally along with the stories of our American soldiers and American workers from World War II.