What were thousands of enemy soldiers doing in Iowa from 1943 to 1946? Find out at the Humanities Iowa program at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 24 at the Le Grand Pioneer Heritage Library. Chad W. Timm, an Associate Professor of Education at Simpson College, will present “Working with the Enemy: German, Italian and Japanese Prisoners of War in Iowa during the Second World War.”

As part of a relatively quiet and under-publicized government program, thousands of enemy soldiers invaded Iowa in 1943. With the hugely successful 1942 Allied campaign against Adolf Hitler’s Afrika Corps in North Africa, the number of enemy prisoners of war needing interment grew dramatically. Great Britain, no longer able to accommodate the increasing number of POWs, looked to the United States for help.