White City, Ore. — Camp White military facility, now home to theVA Center in Jackson County, holds a wealth of Rogue Valley history. It hasserved as a training camp for American soldiers in WWII and was also aPOW camp. It’s biggest kept secret however, might be a covert experiment involving Nazi soldiers.
Al Inlow has worked as a volunteer at the Southern Oregon Rehabilitation Center and clinics for nearly 20 years.
“It’s just a big part of my life,” Inlow explains.
His personal history with these 40 plus acres goes back much further.
“I’ve seen this camp being built,” he explains.
Few know about a top secret mission that took place within the original walls. An experiment to re-educate, or as local historian Joe Peterson says, de-Nazify captured German soldiers.
“1,600 German POW’s were held here,” says Peterson.
Between 1944-1946 German POW soldiers lived, worked and studied here, all part of an experiment heavily supported by Eleanor Roosevelt to re-educate them and strip them of the propaganda they had been taught by Nazi Germany.
While American history classes, government courses and English lessons were taught, it may have been the kindness they experienced from Americans in the Rogue Valley that made the biggest impact.
“They overwhelmingly thought they were well treated,” Peterson says.
Inlow remembers the soldiers well. “I worked out in the orchards with these people.I think they enjoyed it here and a lot of them came back.”
Stories he loves to share and a responsibility he feels to keep Rogue Valley history alive.
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