National POW/MIA Recognition Day

September 21 is dedicated to remembering the service and sacrifice of prisoners of war and those missing in action.

Our upcoming special exhibit, Guests of the Third Reich: American POWS in Europe, on view from November 11, 2012 – July 7, 2013, will feature the words, drawings and stories of those men held prisoner by Germany during the Second World War. The exhibit takes its name from a journal kept in a POW camp by Major Newton Cole, a Chemical Officer with the 29th Infantry Division. Below, on the second page of his journal, Cole describes his capture near St. Lô, France, thirteen days after the invasion of Normandy. Cole became one of 1,500 prisoners at Oflag 64, a POW camp for American officers near Szubin, Poland.

Gift of the Men of Oflag 64, 2006.130.002

See our post from National POW/MIA Recognition Day 2011.

Post by Curator Kimberly Guise.