Caribou students to debut film on Houlton WWII POW camp

HOULTON – Students from the video production class at Caribou Regional Technology Center are gearing up to unveil their documentary about German prisoners detained at a former internment camp in town during World War II.

The date is significant for those involved because the film “Don’t Fence Me In” will be shown on Sunday, June 6, the 60th anniversary of D-Day. The film will debut at 4:15 p.m. in the education center at Houlton Regional Hospital.

“We’re very excited,” Brenda Jepson, the students’ instructor, said Friday. “This documentary has been nearly a year in the making, and to be able to show it on such a momentous date means a lot to us.”

Eight students in the class, called Viking Video Productions, documented interviews with former POWs held at Camp Houlton from 1944 to 1946. Relics of the camp still remain near Houlton International Airport.

The film also features conversations with residents who remember the POWs picking potatoes, cutting ice and harvesting wood in the area while at the camp.

Production of the video began in September 2003, when some of the former POWs came back to Houlton for an event organized by the Houlton Historical Society, according to Jepson.

Jan Schramke, a German native who attends the University of Maine, served as a translator for the student filmmakers, according to a press release.

Along with the former prisoners, students interviewed Milton Bailey of Presque Isle, the camp’s historian, and Kay Bell, curator of the Aroostook County Historical and Art Museum in Houlton.

Officials originally planned to screen the documentary at the Temple Theatre in Houlton, but technical issues prohibited it. The education center’s seating capacity allows for 90 people, but Jepson said that the group would replay the film at 5:15 p.m. if needed.

“We don’t want people to get discouraged if the place looks full or if there aren’t enough seats,” Jepson said. “If the first show fills up, we are going to offer a reception for guests and have another show an hour later. We want everyone to be able to see it.”

The students also will sell copies of the video to help defray production costs and to assist in purchasing new equipment, according to Jepson.

Amy Courtney, a senior from Presque Isle High School, called working on the project “exhilarating.”

“People don’t know about POW camps,” Courtney wrote in a press release. “They don’t know that people from enemy lines can get along like brothers and sisters … [it is hoped the video] will instill a sense that war is senseless in many viewers’ eyes.”

Caribou High School senior Brandon Argraves was equally excited about the project.

“It is important to capture the history of our area,” Argraves said. “It was an honor to meet the POWs and some folks who knew the past.”

By making the historic video, the students have made history themselves. Their documentary will be a part of the permanent collection in the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the History Museum in Bonne, Germany, Jepson said Friday. There also are plans for the video to be shown on Maine Public Television.

“The students are so thrilled to be showing this,” Jepson said. “We encourage everyone to come out and view their work.”

For more information about the video, e-mail Jepson at bjepson@mail.caribouschools.org.