A 1940s-era German prisoner-of-war camp located in Statesboro will be memorialized in a dedication ceremony Thursday.

The Bulloch County Historical Society will erect a plaque after a brief ceremony at 3 p.m. at the site on Highway 301 North at the business plaza adjacent to the Statesboro Flea Market building, said society member and Georgia Southern University Museum director Brent Tharpe.

University students who helped coordinate the project will share excerpts from letters of thanks discovered during their research, which were written by prisoners to farming families in the community who hired them to help harvest local crops, he said.

The plaque will be erected at the actual site of the camp, which was a subcamp of a larger Fort Stewart camp. Through research, it was learned that the POWs were used to help harvest peanuts and other crops during times when labor was scarce due to the war, he said.

The camp was active from 1943 to 1945. Many residents of the area also recall a military station closer to the current Statesboro Airport on Highway 301 and a "holding pen" near Hill Street where prisoners were placed so farmers could pick them up for work. The prisoners were housed at the Highway 301 site, not at the holding pen, which was simply a fenced-in area, he said.

"It has been a detective story," Tharpe said, referring to research the group conducted in search of the exact location of the camp, as residents who were interviewed sometimes confused it with the holding pen and other military station.

According to previous reports in the Statesboro Herald by history columnist Roger Allen, the camp housed both German and Italian POWs, from ages 18 to 38, who worked throughout the area under supervision of the military through the Georgia Agricultural Extension Act.

Tharpe said the public is invited to the dedication ceremony Thursday.

Herald reporter Holli Deal Saxon may be reached at (912) 489-9414.