Thibodaux, Louisiana
Thibodaux, Louisiana
“I am a historian and a writer who has lived in Donaldsonville for over 35 years. I studied the town of Donaldsonville intensely and its history dating back to over a couple hundred of years. I did not know much about this topic, but when I saw the first article in the Donaldsonville Chief newspaper in 1943 I was stunned by it and I continued to do research on it.”
“I would go and talk to people in town that were around 70 years old, I was in my early 40s at the time, and these people knew all about World War II. My favorite story about the Donaldsonville POW camp was during Christmas of 1943, World War II was at its peak in Europe and the sugarcane farmers were struggling down here between Thibodaux, Lockport, Raceland, and Houma. The first 500 Germans had just arrived in Donaldsonville in November of 1943 and they were walking from the train station to the POW camp, equivalent to about 10 blocks, and they sang German songs all together while walking to the camp with about 100 guards around them.”
“The school system prioritizes what they have to teach, so it wasn’t taught. World War II is taught in schools, but it is such a broad complex story that you can only take so much of it.”