LIBERTY, Texas - On a cold, blustery morning at the Trinity Valley Exposition a small crowd huddled in their warmest clothes Friday to commemorate a sometimes overlooked, and extremely unique, piece of Liberty County history – the era where the fairgrounds gave way to German prisoners of war.
TVE began in 1909 in the heart of downtown Liberty. In 1930, the Fair moved to its present location a few miles east of town.
In 1943, with America deeply involved in World War II, Liberty County rice farmers were extremely short on labor and their rice crops were rotting in the fields. So, Liberty County farmers appealed to the U.S. Army which provided 800 German prisoners of war and the Trinity Valley Exposition became Camp Liberty.
Ada Faye Schmidt with the Libertad Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, was 10 years old at the time. Her dad was the prison camp doctor.
"There are so many people, even in Liberty, who do not know that there was a prisoner of war camp here,” Schmidt said.
"Prisoners did not know what snakes were,” she said still amused by the memories. “And they would pick them up and put them around their necks as trophies because they were so fascinated with them. Americans would try to tell them 'You're not supposed to do that. You're gonna get bitten!'”
“They couldn't imagine us being so friendly, and nice to 'em,” said Liberty County resident Nora Lee Ladd. She was a 19-year-old rice company secretary, who says the Germans were shocked they were treated so well.
They were even allowed to roam around town (with a guard alongside), interact with Liberty residents, and try to understand this foreign thing called Texas hospitality.
“We treated them just like one of us, which, that's our trait you know. They saw that we were very friendly and nice to them, and we didn't have to be." said Ladd.
Prisoners were paid $2.15 a day and allowed to keep .80 cents for use at the camp PX. After WWII, an estimated 100,000 German prisoners in Texas at various locations were sent home.
"It was good for our community,” said TVE director James Bricker. “It helped the farmers and it helped those prisoners. It gave them something to do other than bust rocks or sit around here all day."
So now, at the entrance to the Trinity Valley Exposition, two historic markers are in place – one noting TVE’s place in Liberty history and the other marking Camp Liberty, the “friendly” POW camp.
A camp that Liberty residents believe probably sent Germans home from war realizing Texas, and America, wasn’t such a bad place after all.