THICKET Magazine Features Aliceville POWs

The October/November issue of the new THICKET magazine has a story on page 75 entitled "Behind Enemy Lines." Based on my friend Stacey Torch's visit to the Spring 2007 reunion of former POWs, their guards, and members of the Aliceville community, the article includes interviews with Hermann Blumhardt, who was captured in North Africa in 1943, and Thomas Sweet, who served as a guard at Camp Aliceville during World War II.

Stacey quotes from letters written by POWs, thanking Aliceville residents for care packages sent to them and their families when they were desperate after the war. As Thomas Sweet told Stacey, his experience in Aliceville made him understand that "although other people may have a different nationality, they're the same as us. It never pays to judge people before you get to know them."

Looking back during the reunion, Sweet expressed what many people there were thinking and feeling when he said, "I've always said I have a soft spot in my heart for the people of Aliceville. You had to have been here to experience it to understand why."

If you'd like to read this article or others about "Alabama Redefined," as THICKET characterizes its theme, you can go to the magazine's website at http://www.thicketmag.com/.