The Karnes County Historical Commission is pleased to announce the erection and dedication of an official Historic Texas Cemetery Marker for the World War II Kenedy Alien Detention Camp Cemetery on Saturday, April 28, at 10 a.m.

The public is cordially invited to attend the ceremony, which will remember and honor five civilian alien detainees who died and were buried there during their internment.

The Kenedy Alien Detention Camp Cemetery is located on the southeast outskirts of the City of Kenedy, Texas, alongside Karnes County Road 330 about one-fourth mile southeast of the Kenedy Cemetery and Loma Alta Cemetery.

Because seating will be limited, attendees are requested to bring their own folding chairs and umbrellas for wet or sunny weather.

The Kenedy Alien Detention Camp was established on April 21, 1942, and lasted till October 1, 1944. During those two and one-half years, some 3500 male civilian enemy aliens of Japanese, German, and Italian ancestry from Central and South American countries were confined in the camp. The detainees, except those who died, were eventually transferred, paroled, repatriated, or exchanged for American and Latin American citizens who were Axis prisoners.

Shortly after D-Day on June 6, 1944, the Kenedy Alien Detention Station was converted on October 1, 1944, into a Fort Sam Houston Branch Camp for German officer POWs.

After V-E Day on May 8, 1945, the camp was converted on July 1, 1945, into a Japanese Officer POW Camp.

After V-J Day on August 15, 1945, the Japanese POWs were repatriated, and the Kenedy camp was officially closed on January 1, 1946. The land was returned to its owners, and its buildings and equipment were declared as army surplus and sold or donated.

Today the site of Camp Kenedy, on the southern outskirts of the City of Kenedy, Texas, is a residential subdivision hardly recognizable as a World War II place of internment with a barbed wire enclosure.

The Kenedy Alien Detention Camp Cemetery, about one mile east of the site of the camp, is one of the few vestiges of World War II facility.