Thibodaux, Louisiana
Thibodaux, Louisiana
I do not have a direct connection to the camp, I just know everything from what I heard through secondary sources or from what I heard from others. My grandparents’ house was by the camps. My grandparents’ home was built there in 1940, before they set up the camp. I now own the house on North 6th Street. I heard stories of it from over the years.
There were multiple camps in Thibodaux. The one I am most familiar with is the small camp setup on Coloun Road. I know there are three dead end roads called Vallery, Vernon, and Victory. All of those “V” streets were originally part of the compound setup to be the POW camp. They had a fence around it. They started building houses, and it was called the Lafourche Country Club because they had a golf course there. Along those streets on the west side was where the camp was. Then they had a Civilian Concentration Core Camp that was a depression area for the federal government to give employment for the young men and that camp was according to my godfather located between north 11th Street going towards Chackbay. There are still structures of buildings on Vallery Street, they were barracks for German Prisoners. Right outside they also had a tent camp, originally where Camco or John Deere is today. All together they keep 400 to 600 germans. The prisoners were treated well, most of the prisoners were captured in North Africa. When they surrendered they were shipped overseas to Thibodaux.
Well because when they had the camp no one spoke about it. In today’s time no one knows history. They do not teach local history for the
young people. Also no one speaks to their parents and grandparents to
learn the history of Thiobodaux. Mostly the people in that time just did not
want to talk about it, due to it being around the war.