Items Made by Prisoners at Ryan Park Prisoner of War Camp

Transcription

1 Items Made by Prisoners at Ryan Park Prisoner of War Camp During World War II, over 500 Prisoner of War (POW) camps were created throughout the United States to house approximately 425,000 prisoners from Germany, Italy and other AXIS countries. The camps were built, in part, due to overcrowded conditions in Great Britain and to add to a depleted American work force. Wyoming was home to a number of POW facilities. One camp at Ryan Park in the Medicine Bow Mountains housed German, Austrian, and Italian POWs. Ryan Park is located at an elevation of 8,000 feet and originally served as a Civilian Conservation Corps camp during the 1930s. POWs placed in this camp were put to work assisting with timber operations in the area. Today, Ryan Park serves as a National Forest campground facility. During World War II, Meryle R. Hansen worked for the Wyoming Tie and Timber Company. He oversaw POWs in the timber operations. The wooden shoes and trinket boxes seen below were given to Mr. Hansen as gifts by POWs. They were carved by the prisoners during their stay at Ryan Park.

2 Chip Carved Trinket Box This box was given to Meryle Hansen by Austrian prisoner of war Josef Szirola A forest scene containing a stream with a waterwheel and building are painted on the inside lid of the trinket box. Prisoner of War Szirola wrote his name and address inside the trinket box in pencil.

3 corative Clogs These wooden clogs were made by an Italian prisoner of war at Ryan Park. On the bottom of one shoe is written "POW Riboni Remo Italy, December 1943." a,b

4 The lid of this box contains a painting of a road through some woods. Chip Carved Trinket Box The top of this box is painted with a moonlight scene

5 Handmade Mousetrap Meryle Hansen found this mousetrap after Ryan Camp closed and believed it to have been made by one of the POWs Painting of a Cabin in Snow This Christmas scene was painted on a carboard lid from a box of marbles. It was done by Austrian prisoner of war Josef Szirola. A

6 From 1986 to 1988, Meryle Hansen gave oral history interviews to the Wyoming State Archives. A portion of those interviews is transcribed below. I will now try, by memory, to tell you about the Prisoners of War that we had here. The first time we had Italians and the second time we had Germans and Austrians. We had this camp for approximately 2 ½ years. We received our first prisoners, who were Italians in 1943, and usually had 60 to 100 at a time. We enjoyed them all and the Italians were very, very good coming from the professional side some being doctors, dentists, lawyers and so forth. They talked a lot about their families and had pictures to show us of them. They loved to sing and dance and do acrobatics, paint, draw pictures, recite poetry a lot so, on the weekends, that was mostly what they did. Most of us that were instructing these prisoners got together and put some money from our paycheck every week, into a kitty' and decided to buy them musical instruments. So we bought about one instrument every two weeks until we had about four or five instruments for them and they had a little band. Then Saturdays after lunch, those of us that had wives or families, we were given the privilege to come over and stand outside of the fence by the front gate where the guards house was and the boys would come up there, sing and dance and play their orchestra. It was a ball for them as much as it was for us. So when Saturdays came, that is what we would do. They always had something new to do or show us. In fact I have carvings yet that were given to me, plus some of the pictures that were painted. The boys were very easy to get along with, didn't care much about work, were very knowledgeable and seemed to be very trustworthy. Later on the Captain gave them a privilege that they could go down, about 2 hours (from 2pm-4pm) on Sundays to the ski course, about a mile and a half below the camp. When their two hours were up, they would walk back to the camp with their guards. They were not allowed to ski, but could spend time by the warming house and eat the hamburgers and drink the coffee that was given to them. It was a very enjoyable place on weekends for all of us on Saturdays and Sundays. In fact, some of us would start skiing early Saturday morning, not taking time to eat, and ski until dark. The Italian boys, not all of them, but some of them, 10 or 15, were allowed the first Sunday and the rest the next Sunday, were allowed to come down. Normally there were one or two guards that went along down to the ski course, where they would sing and play some of their instruments for us.

7 The Italians and Germans were hired to work in the timber by the timber company, which was R.R. Crow. Seven of us were picked out to work with the boys and were furnished trucks by the lumber company, which were new trucks, covered in back with canvas. There was a ladder that came out the back to load the boys. They went up the ladder and found their place in the back to sit and we took them to work. They were paid 80 cents a day to work in the timber. Each one of us that had a truck had so many prisoners apiece, giving them a bed and dinner. Leave at 6:30 in the morning, line the trucks outside the gates, load the trucks, and leave. We would start out in the high country to work in the timber. Each one of us would have a block in the timber. We would draw out of a hat and go to our block assigned to. We would get out of the truck with them, showed them the timber to mark. I would mark the trees to be cut. If one of them got hurt, we would call for the medic and he would take care of them. It was hard to get a lot of work out of the Italian boys, as they were singing, doing acrobats, etc. We were given books to translate Italian to American and American to Italian and the same was done with the Germans. We packed our lunch. They were served from large trucks with steam tables and were served a hot lunch. They were treated a lot better here than they were at home. On Friday nights each week, the boys came in from work, got off the trucks and were handed a small bottle of wine. We treated their boys very good here. I don't think our boys were treated the same. These boys were often caught just sitting in the trees, not doing much. They made fish catchers out of twigs, set them in the stream, and caught trout. They would then take them back and cook them in the kitchen. They made sling shots, not like we make here, but they were very good shots with them. They were very appreciative of what we did for them and the drivers were always being given some small trinket that they made to show their appreciation. They would cut something out of wood, like wooden shoes or boxes, cut with razor blades. So many of them said they were going to come back to America, as they had never seen a country like this. In 1944, the Italian boys left and we got German boys and Austrian boys. The German and Austrian boys did not get along too well and we had some problems with some of them. In the mornings we had riots and so forth. Headquarters was called up in Greeley and the bad ones were rooted out, sent back, and replacements were gotten. They called Greeley, the Bull Pen. The German boys did a lot of work around the camp with flowerbeds, gardens, and a water wheel. It was about four feet in diameter in the creek up there with a dam to run the water

8 wheel. A lot of animated figures were carved, two feet tall, that they carved and were run with belts. When they turned the water wheel on, these figures would cut wood, saw wood, wash clothes, all kinds of animations. We had several boys there that were less than 18 years old and were tough as nails. They were good workers and did not goof off, as you say. They were workers. They had their own paramedics and, if someone cut himself, they would holler out for a paramedic and he would come and take care of them. Both the Italians and the Germans had their own paramedics. We worked these boys up above North Bush Creek up to what we used to call Jippo Park. It was quite a ways up there and the company put up two large barns up there for horses. The Germans skidded the logs as well as cut them onto where the roads were to be built and to deck them. The barns were for the horses that were used to this. We had two barn bosses: Clyde Wyant, Sr. and Fred Ward, Sr. Both were from Saratoga and were good friends of mine. Both had a barn. The company for the horses hauled feed in. A small shack was also there to fix and repair harness and chains. There had to be a vet also to know what to do when horses were hurt. Sometimes the German boys weren't too good with the horses and sticks got ran into the horse's stomachs and needed to be doctored. This camp was at about 10,000 foot altitude, very high. It bothered some of the boys, but they seemed to manage it. They were transported the same as the Italian prisoners and were also given hot meals in the winter. When the snow got so deep, they had to shovel down to the bottom of the tree before it could be cut. Rules and regulations were that the stumps could only be so high when cut down. A lot of timber was taken out of there by both the German and Italian boys. In the past years, since I have been back, it is amazing how many trees have regrown. But we had some problems with them. For instance, I had just showed them how high to cut the trees above the ground, when a 16 year old boy, they were big boys, had run up behind me with a double bit ax and tried to come down on me and the guard told him to drop it. The guard said if he didn't drop it, that he was in their sights, so that was one of the hazards we had. Those boys were sent back and we ended up with a really good bunch.