We arrived at Divisional Headquarters the following day, and were lodged in the loft of a warehouse. The ground floor was a guard room, the second floor was a place of detention for Russian soldiers, and our loft was shared by spies--mostly Jews. We were very indignant at having them thrust upon us, because we had done nothing disgraceful. They were soon removed--out of consideration for their feelings, not for ours. The building had been erected to stock parquet-flooring, and we used to take out the beautiful examples of Russian peasant-work, hack them to pieces, and make our fires with them. The authorities did not trouble about this destruction of valuable property at all. We were a mixed lot, Austrians and Germans. The leader of the Austrians was a Serbian sergeant, who had been captured on patrol. His twin brother had been shot beside him, and his last act in the field had been to bury him and erect a cross over his head. One day we found him touched to tears, and asked what the matter was. It turned out that the Russian General of the Division could speak Serbian and had actually been at this man’s home. The Russians were obviously trying to cajole the Austrian Slavs round to their side. The other Austrians were from the Polish Legion. They were said to be deserters, and they treated the Germans with haughty contempt. All our communications with the Russians took place through the Austrians, as only they could speak a Slav language. They made use of this to get all they wanted for themselves and to cheat us in whatever way they could. It was so throughout the captivity wherever I went. The Germans had a saying, “We are twice in captivity, first to the Russians, secondly to the Austrians.” The hatred of the Austrians they had brought with them from the front was only intensified in captivity, and it will bear bitter fruit in time to come. The Germans were mostly peasants from East Prussia and Silesia. Some of them were very dirty, and one man did not wash all the while we were there. Three were suffering from vile skin diseases. This would have been bad enough, if we had only been obliged to see it every day. But our soup was brought to us in a huge bowl, and we were all supposed to eat out of it with our spoons. After some days we managed to make arrangements by which the soup was portioned out to each one separately. The distribution always led to fierce quarrels, the Germans accusing the Austrians of taking too much, and _vice versâ_. [SN: HUNGER]