At the end of World War II, the bodies of many prisoners who died while incarcerated in Texas prisoner of war camps were returned to their homelands.  Not all POW bodies, however, were returned.  141 prisoners of war were buried in temporary gravesites at several Texas POW camps.  After the war, these bodies were disinterred and some were re-buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio.  140 of these bodies still rest in section ZA of the Fort Sam Houston Cemetery.  133 are German; 4 are Italian; 3 are Japanese.  It appears there were originally 141 graves.  Gravesite ZA109, however, has no marker.

While these POWs were buried in what was once a remote section of the Sam Houston National Cemetery, the present-day cemetery surrounds the area where the POWs were laid to rest.  But for the names and inscriptions on the markers, the POW graves are marked in exactly the same fashion (simple, white marble, military markers) as most of the other American service personnel buried in this cemetery.  No longer isolated, these graves are in an active portion of the cemetery.  On the January 2003 morning when the names below were recorded, two different graveside services took place at a nearby open-air pavilion (one of five used daily by the cemetery for graveside services).  Several 21-gun salutes and bugles playing "Taps" could be heard in the distance.  Burials on one side of section ZA are primarily of American servicemen from the Vietnam and Korean conflicts.  Several 2002 and 2003 burials of American WWII veterans and their spouses were apparent in another adjoining plot.  Off to another side of section ZA is a cemetery service road; beyond that, the Fort Sam Houston golf course.  The grounds are well-maintained.

The body of Hugo Krauss, who was murdered by Nazi POWs at Camp Hearne in December 1943, is among those interred at Fort Sam Houston.  Krauss was originally interred at the temporary Camp Hearne Cemetery (which no longer exists).  His gravesite at the Fort Sam Houston Cemetery is one grave down and a grave or two over from the only graves at the cemetery that are identified as being those of Nazi soldiers.  While all of the other 140 POW markers contain names and death dates only, the headstones identifying the burial spots of the two Nazis -- Georg Forst & Alfred P. Kafka -- have crosses with swastikas etched into them.  Both of these headstones also carry the inscription:  "Er Starb Fern Der Heimat Fur Fuhrer Volk Und Vaterland."  None of the other POW headstones bear personal inscriptions (other than occasional military service information).