Aiken High students focus on local ties to World War II

May 23—A class in world literature is shedding light on a relatively obscure fact from local history, when more than 600 German prisoners of war were held in a camp on Aiken High School's grounds and nearby acreage.

The final month of the school year for teacher Kayla Hostetler is including a focus on World War II, including Anne Frank's diary. Hostetler opted to localize the lessons and have students consider what Aiken residents and the captured Germans were likely to have experienced 80 years ago, as the war's tide turned and German POWs were largely sent across the Atlantic to await the titanic conflict's end.

Activities included a May 22 visit to the school's athletic practice field, across Teague Street from Hagood Stadium, to read some accounts from people who were a part of the scene, either as POWs or witnesses. Earlier in the day, the class heard from Steve Silvers representing Aiken's synagogue, the Adath Yeshurun congregation, as he gave a talk on Jewish history in Aiken.

Reminders of the POW camp include a marker a few yards from Laurens Street, at the PruittHealth facility, formerly known as the Mattie C. Hall nursing home. Hostetler and her students are exploring the possibility of creating and erecting a similar marker on the high school's campus, and the Monday visit at the practice field included an assignment for students to consider the appropriate look and text for such a marker.

"We haven't done any interviews yet, but that's also a project we're doing," said student William Erbskorn. "We're interviewing veterans in the area and making a video about it."

Classmate Kenya Williams added, "I think this is our last topic ... we're doing in this class — the POW camp and just the whole Holocaust era in general."

Hostetler, in describing her class' emphasis, said subject matter has touched on all the continents. "I was trying to think about what's an event that impacted the world, and I thought about World War II, and how we could pull different perspectives from around the world — start big and then come micro back into Aiken, with Aiken's World War II history."

She got in touch with Allen Riddick, longtime president of Aiken County Historical Society, and students read from his book, "Memories of Growing Up and Living in Aiken, South Carolina," and also looked into "In Their Own Words: Augusta and Aiken Area Veterans Remember World War II," a compilation edited by Hubert Van Tuyll, Douglas Higbee and James Garvey.

The class, which includes sophomores and a few juniors, is "an amazing group of kids," she said. "They come every day. They work hard."

The marker on the PruittHealth property notes, "German prisoners of war were held in a camp on this site from November 1943 to May 1946. This camp, one of 21 in S.C., was at first a sub-camp of the POW camp at Camp Gordon (now Fort Gordon), in Augusta, Ga.; It was later a sub-camp of Fort Jackson, in Columbia. 250 prisoners captured in North Africa were the first held here. Men captured in Italy and France in 1943-44 increased the total to 62 prisoners by January 1945."

The side of the marker facing away from traffic adds, "German POWs lived in tents with wooden floors, up to five men in each. Their mess hall was a large frame barracks. They worked 8-10 hours a day, harvesting peanuts or peaches, cutting pulpwood or lumber, planting trees, or working in a fertilizer factory. POWs were paid 80 cents a day in credit at the camp store. When not working prisoners often played soccer, put on plays and concerts, and took night classes."