Ukrainian Prisoners in Winchester VA?
There's a movie called The Incident starring Walther Mathau, a lawyer ordered by a Judge to be a public defender of a German prisoner charged with murder of an American prison doctor.
The lawyer finds out that the camp is not being run by Americans. It is run by Nazis who still believe in Hitler. They are terrorizing the other prisoners who are glad to be out of the war and who no longer believe in Hitler.
Could some of this have happened in a WWII prison camp in Winchester VA on Smithfield and Virginia Avenue?
Inspectors of the Winchester prison camp reported this:
“It has been found necessary to segregate…[the prisoners] by races…to avoid trouble between Tartars, Cossacks, Mongols, etc.” All of them had been captured wearing German uniforms.
So who were these Tatars, Cossacks, Mongols ?
They all lived in the region we know as Ukraine. The Tatars were more in the Crimean peninsula. The Cossacks and Mongols were in the plains of central and eastern Ukraine.
Source of quote:
Hitler's Wehrmacht in Virginia, 1943-1946 John Hammond Moore The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Jul., 1977), pp. 259-273 (15 pages) https://www.jstor.org/stable/4248137 and Page 109 of Virginia POW Camps in World War II by Dr. Kathryn Roe Coker · Jason Wetzel
We also did know them as Ukrainians as well. In 1932 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of George Washington's birthday The Ukraine orchestra visited the Whitehouse.
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Why Ukrainian and Russian Prisoners?
On June 1, 1941 there were 239 "German" prisoners.
Some of them may have been Ukrainian prisoners in Winchester VA.
Initially the Ukrainians welcomed the Germans because the Ukrainians had just gone through a genocidal killing and starving by Russians.
Initially both Ukrainians and Russians joined the Germans.
Then the Ukrainians saw the Nazis to be just as ruthless as the Russians were to their cause.
The Nazi Germans then forced both Ukrainian and Russian prisoners to wear the German uniform to fight for Germany.
Some of them may have been Ukrainian prisoners in Winchester VA.
More on the Ukrainians and Russians wearing German uniforms:
The "German" POW camp was effectively shut down and sold on March 29, 1947 thus ending the use of POW labor for Frederick County fruit growers.
This Winchester prisoner camp was a subsidiary of the main operation in Front Royal.
We track this story because the Ukrainian language as were other languages including English were morphing into stable and standard spellings during the time of Colonel George Washington and Fort Loudoun in Winchester VA.
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"A Dictionary of the English Language,
sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary, was published on 15 April 1755 and written by Samuel Johnson.[2] It is among the most influential dictionaries in the history of the English language.
There was dissatisfaction with the dictionaries of the period, so in June 1746 a group of London booksellers contracted Johnson to write a dictionary for the sum of 1,500 guineas (£1,575), equivalent to about £310,000 in 2025." - Wikipedia
The Ukrainian language
started to standardize a 100 years later into the 1850s. But the roots of its language goes back 1000 years. Influences from the Kingdom of Ruthenia to the area being partitioned by Lithuania, Poland and Russia. Lithuania gave the locals more autonomy while Poland and Russia tried to force their wishes on to the locals.
In 1939 a Ukrainian orchestra came to entertain the White House. The newspapers didn't call them Russia, even though they were controlled by the Soviet Union.
Why Ukrainian and Russian Prisoners?
On June 1, 1941 there may have been Ukrainian prisoners in Winchester VA.
Initially the Ukrainians welcomed the Germans because the Ukrainians had just gone through a genocidal killing and starving by Russians.
Initially both Ukrainians and Russians joined the Germans.
Then the Ukrainians saw the Nazis to be just as ruthless as the Russians were to their cause.
The Nazi Germans then forced both Ukrainian and Russian prisoners to wear the German uniform to fight for Germany.
These were the prisoners who were held in prison camp in the Smithfield area of Winchester VA.
There were 239 prisoners in the Winchester Prison Camp.
That stat is from from a June 1, 1941 record in NARA (National Archives and Records Administration, PMGO Provost Marshal General Office of US Navy, RG 389) This source is used by the book, Virgina POW Camps in WWII by Dr Kathryn Roe Coker and Jason Wetzel.
The German POW camp was effectively shut down and sold on March 29, 1947 thus ending the use of POW labor for Frederick County fruit growers.
This Winchester prisoner camp was a subsidiary of the main operation in Front Royal.
Sources:
Hitler's Wehrmacht in Virginia, 1943-1946 John Hammond Moore The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Jul., 1977), pp. 259-273 (15 pages) https://www.jstor.org/stable/4248137 and Page 109 of Virginia POW Camps in World War II by Dr. Kathryn Roe Coker · Jason Wetzel
So who were these Tatars, Cossacks, Mongols ?
They all lived in the region we know as Ukraine. The Tatars were more in the Crimean peninsula. The Cossacks and Mongols were in the plains of central and eastern Ukraine.
The German POW camp was effectively shut down and sold on March 29, 1947 thus ending the use of POW labor for Frederick County fruit growers.
The Incident
There's a movie that shows how a lot of these so-call German prisoners hated each other.
Notice the quote highlighted above and repeated here:
“It has been found necessary to segregate…[the prisoners] by races…to avoid trouble between Tartars, Cossacks, Mongols, etc.” All of them had been captured wearing German uniforms.
Walter Mathau stars in it. It is called The Incident. Walter Mathau unwillingly recieves an order to defend a German prisoner for murder. This leads to the discover that a group of Nazis are terrorizing the other German prisoners. The really bad inmates are in charge. They're running the camp. They still believe in Hitler when most of the other prisoners are glad they were captured and taken out of this horrible war.
More on Ukraine
Prison Camp in Winchester
Posted in January 2023
The meaning of The Ukraine
Posted in March 2022
Compiled by Jim Moyer 3/9/2025, first researched in 2022
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