During and after WWII, Utah housed over 8000 German prisoners of war.  These men were spread out throughout the state and lived in camps of 250.  The camps were located in places where the men could work on farms and help out due to the labor shortage caused by the war.  One of the camps was in Orem where the men worked in the orchards.  Another camp was located in Salina, and the men there worked in the sugar beet fields.  Nearly all of the interactions between the POWS and the farm families were positive.  In some cases they built friendships that lasted for decades after the men returned home.

In a tragedy largely forgotten by history, Clarence Bertucci took over his guard duties at Midnight on July 8, 1945.  He methodically loaded his machine gun with the full 250 rounds and then fired on the tents of the sleeping and defenseless POWS.  He was stopped as he was reloading to start shooting again.  Dozens were injured and 9 died in what has come to be known as the Salina Massacre.  Because the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened shortly after this, the Salina Massacre has been mostly forgotten.  Not very many people in Salina, fewer Utahns and even fewer Americans know the story.  It is almost completely unknown in Germany.

Timpview High School maintains a partner-school relationship with the Franziskaneum Gymnasium in Meissen, Germany.  Meissen is Provo’s sister city and birthplace of Karl Maeser.  Every other year we take Timpview students to Meissen in June and then students from the Franziskaneum come to visit us in October.  This year 22 students and 3 teachers from the Franziskaneum visited us in October.  While they were here, we visited the small CCC and POW Museum in Salina.  After our visit, we worked on a communal project that resulted in the creation of 133 cyanotypes and a documentary film.  From these artworks and the documentary film, we created a new exhibit for the museum which we delivered on Friday, December 15th.  Theme of our project was building bridges of understanding–even after bad things have happened. Our project was supported by a grant from the Provo Foundation and a grant from the American Association of Teachers of German (AATG).  The Timpview Art Department gave us the idea to create cyanotypes and taught us the process.  Please look at our cyanotypes and watch the film.

• Watch the Fences or Bridges film here
• PDF Slides of Fences or Bridges Cyanotypes