CARVING a Community

A story about how the holiday spirit brought one Iowa town together

By Diana Lambdin Meyer | Photography by Darin Friedrichs

Floyd Hartzell was 10 years old the first time he saw what is now known as the Algona Nativity.

At the time, however, he wasn’t as impressed with the architecture and construction or the enduring message of “Peace on Earth” as he was with the surroundings: the interior of a German POW camp in the rural Iowa community of Algona.

Now, nearly 65 years later, Hartzell is one of the primary caretakers of the Algona Nativity and one of dozens of community volunteers helping to preserve an important piece of American history.

Often overlooked in the history of World War II was the late-war presence of POW camps throughout the U.S., filled with prisoners from the armies of Germany, Italy and Japan. About 155 base camps processed nearly 400,000 prisoners in the last two years of the war, when camps in the U.K. could no longer accommodate the demand.

In August 1943, the U.S. Army acquired 287 acres of land where the National Guard Armory now sits. Later that winter, the little girl who would eventually become Hartzell’s wife watched from her front door as the first prisoners were marched to and from the train station through town to the newly constructed Camp Algona. “We were very aware of the prison camp in town, but we were never really afraid,” Carol Hartzell says.

The story of Camp Algona was only to be found in the memories of residents until July 2004, when a number of dedicated individuals accomplished their goal of opening the Camp Algona POW Museum. In an 8,000-square-foot building that once housed a furniture store, the Camp Algona story unfolds quietly, much like the way many of the prisoners entered the lives—and became part of the families—of Iowa residents.

Videotaped interviews with civilians reveal the devotion and love the American families developed for the Germans who worked on their farms. Many sent care packages after the POWs were released, helping the Germans recover in their homeland. Others offered to sponsor the Germans and bring them back as permanent U.S. citizens. Many Iowa families eventually traveled to Europe to visit the prisoners who had all but become a part of their families.

Although the camp closed in February 1946, and everything was sold at a surplus auction, an impressive number of artifacts resurfaced. A door to a guardhouse was found in a local barn; original bunk beds had been sold to a family with 17 children; portions of the entrance sign had been used as siding in an area home; and a German prisoner, still alive today, returned the guitar he played at the camp.

Eduard Kaib was a noncommissioned German officer captured by U.S. forces near Nice, France, about the time the Algona camp was under construction. Soon, the young German found himself transported to central Iowa as a prisoner of war. An architect, Kaib cheered his fellow countrymen that first holiday season by constructing a tabletop-sized crèche—a traditional German representation of the nativity.

The camp commander, Lt. Col. Arthur Lobdell, saw the crèche and with it an opportunity to improve the morale of American and German soldiers under his supervision.

He encouraged Kaib to design and construct a much larger nativity for the following year.

The Geneva Convention of 1929 required that POWs be paid 10 cents an hour for their labor and have access to recreational activities. So Kaib and a small group of prisoners used their earnings from working on area farms to purchase the materials to build 65 half-life-sized figures. The lambs, donkeys, camels and cattle exhibit impressive detail and the considerable talent of their creator.

It took Kaib and his group more than four months to create the nativity.

The final product was so impressive that Lobdell invited the townspeople of Algona to visit the camp to witness this lasting gift of the season.

That was the Christmas of 1945, the year that 10-year-old Hartzell saw the nativity with his family. “Lobdell looked at this as an opportunity to bridge cultures and build something good out of the destruction of war,” he says.

When the camp was dismantled, the Junior Chamber of Commerce took possession of the nativity, displaying it in a small structure at the Kossuth County Fairgrounds. In 1958, it was handed to First United Methodist Church’s Men’s Club, which has opened it to the public each December since.

A number of prisoners have returned to the community over the years to visit the nativity, and although they were in Algona for a short while, they remember how the beautiful structure made their holidays shine. ■

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Visitor Guide:

The Camp Algona POW Museum is located at 114 S. Thorington St. and is open Saturdays and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. April through December or by appointment. Call 515-295-3719 or visit www.pwcamp.algona.org.

The Algona Nativity is also open the month of December, as well as by appointment. Call the First United Methodist Church at 515-295-7241 for information.