Guests Behind the Barbed Wire narrates the true story of Camp Aliceville in Pickens County, Alabama, where as many as 6,000 German prisoners of war were housed during World War II. It is the story not only of those prisoners but also of the 1,000 “raw recruit” soldiers sent from all over America to guard them and of the townspeople who related to the POWs through civilian jobs and labor assignments.

The story of Camp Aliceville has classic elements—escape and death, loneliness and fear, disillusionment and despair, but also humor, hope, and romance as well as amazing creativity that flourished in confinement. The book goes beyond the war to explain why, 60 years later, many of those former POWs and their former guards continue to return to this isolated Alabama location again and again to search out landmarks and familiar faces to help them relive their memories of that time in that place. They continue to bring their families to show them where they were treated well by an enemy that went to extraordinary lengths to implement the Geneva Conventions—at least until American soldiers were safely rescued from German POW camps, which is another part of the story. Book Blurbs...       Aliceville Reunion...

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