Details:
Following a viewing of the PBS Documentary, Held in Minnesota: Untold WWII POW Stories, Simmons will speak about the camps in Minnesota and South Dakota during World War Two. Held in Minnesota: Untold WWII POW Stories, a recent documentary by Pioneer Public Television in Minnesota, earned a Midwest Emmy as the best documentary in 2025. PBS States: “World War II left a severe labor shortage on Minnesota’s farms – threatening the state and nation’s food supply at a critical time. Men who usually worked the fields left to fight overseas, [which] paradoxically created a void that was filled by over 4,000 German and Italian POWs from overseas. Held in Minnesota: Untold WWII POW Stories is a Pioneer PBS documentary film about the forgotten history of twenty-one POW labor camps in Minnesota during WWII by way of a major POW camp in Algona, Iowa. “The POWs and community members were inexplicably drawn to one another. In some cases, the prisoners formed tight bonds with Minnesotans, attended church together, drinking at bars together and working side by side. Held in Minnesota explores the stories of these communities coming to bumpy terms with the enemy not only on their soil but tilling it, during an extraordinary time in Minnesota’s history and the world’s. ”
