Behind Barbed Wire: Midwest POWs in Nazi Germany

(the "BUS-eum" sans BUS)

TheBUS-eum 1motor caught fire in August 2004 enroute to a showing in Omaha. While the BUS survived intact albeit soot-covered, the engine, transmission and radiator system were ruined; TRACES lacked the $8,500 needed to fix it. For a long-planned, five-week tour to 65 Nebraska towns in the fall of 2004, the 22 exhibit panels were placed in movable frames and set up at each site, along with an authentic WWII-era soldier's footlocker filled with artifacts, a 1943 Red Cross film (on video) about the camps and related documentation. This revised version of theBUS-eum 1(sans BUS) was a big hit with the estimated 5,000 Nebraska viewers, too. Like when the BUS is on tour, numerous former Midwest POWs saw the exhibit sans BUS, too--and, like in the pictures below, spoke to others viewing the exhibit. (We would like to offer our hearty thanks to the Vander Haag family of Spencer/Iowa for donating the motor, parts, labor, endless patience and faith in our project needed to get the BUS-eum 1 running again--and thus bringing this story to tens of thousands more people.)

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