Germany in War Time: What an American Girl Saw and HeardMcAuley, Mary Ethel
History
Germany in War Time: What an American Girl Saw and Heard
McAuley, Mary Ethel
World War, 1914-1918 -- Germany
From the very beginning it was Fräulein Hirsch's ambition that
her blind soldiers should not have the old monotonous trades of
basket-making and broom-making. She wanted them to have a broader
field of activity in the world, and so she visited all the factories in
Berlin to find out what work a blind man can do. She has her soldiers
trained to fill these positions. Now she has forty-five blind men
in good munition factory positions, and they work from six to eight
hours a day. At first they received 45 pfennigs an hour wages, but
this was increased to fifty-five pfennigs an hour. Some of the men put
cartridges into frames, and others fill cartridges into pockets. Every
night the workers come home to the hospital where they are housed and
cared for free.
Every morning from eleven to twelve o'clock the men are given their
lessons, and the rest of the day they spend practising them. They learn
typewriting and how to become telephone centrals. I saw one young
fellow there who had lost both eyes at Verdun. He had been studying
typewriting four months and he could take a dictation like a person
with sight.
It is forbidden to use a dictagraph in Germany, but Fräulein Hirsch got
permission to use it for the blind people. As they had none of these
instruments in Germany, Fräulein Hirsch copied the English model and
had them made at her dictation.
One of the blind soldiers here has invented an attachment to the
typewriter that holds the machine fast when the end of the paper is
reached. It is very hard for a blind person to tell when the end of the
paper is reached, and they are very apt to go on ticking after the page
is done. This invention is a rod with a screw in the front and will
undoubtedly be used by the blind typists all over the world.
Another trade the soldiers are taught is cigarette making. German
cigarettes are not rolled but the tobacco is stuffed into papers that
come already fastened together. The blind men learn this very quickly.
Every province in Germany now issues a pamphlet each week to help the
crippled men. These pamphlets are called "From War to Work in Peace,"
and they contain everything that would interest a crippled man, trades
they can pursue, things that they can make if they prefer to stay
at home, and where they can sell what they make. They also contain
advertisements for employment for crippled men.
Near Berlin they have a farm for one-legged men, and here the
one-legged soldiers can go to live and farm. Most of the farmers are
men without families, and they intend to live on the farm all the rest
of their days.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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