The picturesque trips through the United States surprised many of the men, who had been led to believe that America had been bombed by the Luftwaffe—one of the numerous lies Hitler’s propaganda machine had peddled to the German people throughout the war. Some of the POWs weren’t quite ready to accept that Hitler had deceived them; others felt that being captured toward the end of the war was a relief.27

The dramatic entrance to Camp Florence was set against the desert landscape that backed up to the Superstition Mountains, to the east of Phoenix. As the incoming train began its slow approach, the POWs saw a large sign that said “Florence” made of stones, flanked by a big letter “F” painted white on a nearby hillside.

Camp Florence was a campus of separate buildings built in 1942. It was dry, desolate, and without any green space until its POW population became large enough to participate in a lawn-building project. Prisoners shoveled, removed dense dirt to build low dikes for irrigation, and planted grass seed in the moist adobe soil. Having grass and a bit of color helped with morale in the otherwise somber, dusty, and remote camp.28

The residents of Florence had mixed reactions to the camp, but the nation was at war and it was the duty of the city to be accommodating as long as the military was acting reasonably. Housing undesirables wasn’t a completely new idea for those living in Florence, since the town was home to a state prison built in 1908 that is still in operation today.29

Residents who did oppose the camp made sure their voices were heard. Members of the Superior Rotary Club thought a POW camp would threaten the local copper mines and railways. There was added anxiety that relatives of German and Italian POWs would move nearby to be close to their loved ones, posing a new layer of threats and uncertainties. Edward Dentzer, vice president of the Magma-Arizona Railroad Company, wrote to Arizona senator Carl Hayden about his displeasure: “I feel sure that a lot of these people would be potential saboteurs and, therefore, a menace to any defense industries in this locality.”30 The U.S. military felt the concerns were unfounded, and the construction of the camp went on as planned.

When Frederick arrived in Florence in 1944, the camp already housed at least 1,500 prisoners of war. Italian POWs were the first to arrive in 1943, and they were quickly put to work picking cotton in the sun-drenched fields. Cotton was still Arizona’s most important and lucrative agricultural crop. Defense contractors needed massive amounts to produce military uniforms and other products. In the peak month of November 1943, an average of 1,549 prisoners picked fifty-four pounds of cotton apiece most days, which totaled just shy of two million pounds for the month alone.31