Like many other Rhode Island boys, Joseph Czerkiewicz of Warwick registered for the draft on July 1, 1941. Standing about six feet tall and tipping the scales at 160 pounds, the hazel-eyed blond was just 21 years old. The son of Julian Czerkiewicz, a native of Poland, and Mary Skurka, Joseph was a graduate of West Warwick High School and an employee of Newport Finishing in Coventry when he left his family, and everything else he knew, to serve his patriotic duty overseas.

Toward the end of WWII, Joseph was tasked with guarding German prisoners of war whom had been brought back to the United States. Many of the captured Germans were boys and young men who were actually relieved to be removed from the battlefield and supplied with food, warmth and physical safety. Many of the POWs, and those guarding them, went on to form friendships.

One of the POWs under Joseph's watch was an artist with the surname of "Lehmann." Using whatever he could find in order to draw, color and shade on a makeshift canvas, Lehmann created a beautiful depiction of a dog standing beside a fence and presented it to Joseph.

It was not uncommon for POWs to create or craft items with which to gift the guards or their family members or to trade for goods such as cigarettes and candy. Luckily, some of the artwork of WWII POWs still survives. Collections of such work include the art of Helmut Klusson and Artur Oberosler, who were held within a POW camp in Maine, as well as Franz Bacher, who was a POW in New Hampshire.

Over 370,000 German POWs were brought to America and held within 500 camps across the country. Here, they were given jobs at laundries, chopping wood, working in stores, or assigned other tasks which provided them with an income. During their recreational time, they came to know their guards on a personal level and those with artistic ability often presented them with portraits of themselves or the family members who came by the camp. Utilizing pieces of scrap wood and charcoal or plant dyes, they created amazing landscapes and likenesses. By 1949, the German POWs in America had been returned to their own country, leaving behind the images they immortalized.

In the March 30, 2008 edition of the Texas newspaper "Houma Today", a man named Larry Roberts told a story to reporter C.J. Christ about a portrait artist who had been a POW in a Houma camp during WWII. The German had done a portrait of Larry's parents. Larry had recently read a story about a camp artist and thought it might be the same man. The story he'd read concerned a Texas waiter who had been told by a camp guard that there was a POW who could do portraits. The waiter commissioned the POW to create a portrait of his girlfriend, Peggy. The portrait was completed with a frame constructed of shipping crate pieces and scraps of plywood. The portrait is signed "Lehmann."

It’s not known which POW camp Joseph guarded, however it’s possible that the same artist who created the portrait of Larry's parents and that of "Peggy", created the artwork which was given to Joseph and which hung in his father's home until his death. It was then passed on to another family member.

Before completing his military duty, Joseph had suffered a battle injury in June of 1944 and spent time in a hospital following an artillery shell blast which caused a hemorrhage of his nose. He recovered from his injuries and later returned to Rhode Island where he resumed work in the textile finishing industry. In Oct. of 1973, he was living on Sandy Pond Road in Hope Valley when he fell ill and was taken to the Veteran's Administration Hospital. After a three-week illness, he died there on Nov. 8.

We will never have detailed accounts of the relationships which were formed between American soldiers and German prisoners of war. Those memories have turned to dust along with those who carried them. But we have rustic images, forever etched and stained on scraps of wood, which passed peacefully from the hands of Germans into the hands of Americans. They are little-known remnants of war which show us the humanity deep beneath the battles.

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.