In depth

The Sodus Point POW Camp

September 1944 – April 1946

Pine Camp, where about 135 German prisoners of war lived and worked on local farms and in canneries during World War II.

Sodus Point POW camp: dirt road leading down to a long white building behind a fence, lake beyond the trees

On September 7, 1944, Pine Camp opened on the old Wayne County children’s camp about a quarter of a mile west of the village. It held about 135 German prisoners of war, brought in because of the severe wartime labor shortage; they picked fruit, pruned trees and worked in local canning factories. The camp was shut down on April 30, 1946. This page gathers the camp’s story, a neighbor’s memory, its plaque, and the diary of one prisoner, Walter Meyer.

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Story

WW II Sodus Point P.O.W Camp

1944

A former county camp for Rochester children west of the village became Pine Camp in 1944, a fenced, guarded compound for German prisoners of war.

Read in order: Diaries of Walter Meyer 5

Diary of Walter Meyer – Sodus Point POW Part 1

Letters & documents

The first part of German prisoner Walter Meyer's diary, translated by his grandson Andreas Suchi, from his 1944 capture in Normandy to the Fort Niagara POW…

Diaries of Walter Meyer – Sodus Point POW Part 2

Letters & documents

The second part of German prisoner Walter Meyer's diary, translated by grandson Andreas Suchi, covering September 1944 to May 1945 at the Sodus Point camp.

Diaries of Walter Meyer – Sodus Point POW Part 3

Letters & documents

The third part of POW Walter Meyer's diary, May to November 1945, as he waits to go home and fears for his family in Russian-occupied Germany.

Diaries of Walter Meyer – Sodus Point POW Part 4

Letters & documents

Walter Meyer's diary from November 1945 to May 1946, as the German prisoner leaves the Sodus Point camp and is shipped from New York to England.

Diaries of Walter Meyer – Sodus Point POW Part 5

Letters & documents

The fifth part of German prisoner Walter Meyer's diary, translated by grandson Andreas Suchi, continuing his story after he left the Sodus Point camp.

Stories and accounts 1

POWS – The human side

A boyhood memory from Bob Pearson's Stinky's Tales of meeting German prisoners of war working in the Sodus Fruit Farm orchards during World War II.

Remembered today: plaques, panels and murals 1

WW II POW Camp Plaque

Plaque or marker