During World War II, more than 400,000 Axis prisoners of war were held in hundreds of camps across the United States. Several of these were in the greater Rochester area; one was at Cobbs Hill.
Initially used as military police barracks, the facility at Cobbs Hill became a POW camp in late September 1943, when 60 Italian captives were brought in to supplement the workforce at local farms and food processing plants.
The demands of the war had depleted the labor supply while boosting production needs. The prisoners helped take up the slack. They worked as many as 10 hours a day, six days a week, to harvest and can tomatoes, beets, carrots, beans, apples, peaches, corn and other crops.
Less than a month after the prisoners’ arrival, Italy declared war on Germany. The Italians became allies and were eventually freed. They were replaced the following summer by 100 Germans.
The relationship between the prisoners and the community was generally harmonious, a fact some American soldiers deeply resented. Tensions erupted one August evening in 1944.
A crowd of about 200 residents from the surrounding neighborhood had gathered outside the camp to listen to the Germans sing. Angered by the praise and appreciation expressed in their applause, soldiers reproached the listeners for their lack of patriotism. Arguments grew heated, and the Rochester police were called in to restore order.
After this incident, the city, backed by the Monroe County American Legion, pressed the Army to relocate the prisoners quartered at Cobbs Hill. They were moved to other camps after the fall canning season that November.
Despite the controversy their presence generated, the German prisoners returned to the Cobbs Hill camp for a brief stint the following February. The city needed them to shovel snow and fill potholes.
Farmers, canners and other food processing interests, anxious about meeting the production demands of the upcoming season, lobbied to keep the prisoners in the city. Monroe County’s American Legion and Council of the Army and Navy Union insisted that they leave.
In the spirit of compromise, prisoner labor continued to be used in the area’s fields and factories throughout the duration of the war, but the workers were housed in camps outside the city. The Cobbs Hill camp was permanently closed to POWs in the spring of 1945.