Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons: Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, RuhlebenTalbot, Frederick Arthur Ambrose
History
Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons: Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben
Talbot, Frederick Arthur Ambrose
World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons
Some of us were given the garden which belonged to the old General who
had been in charge at Sennelager when we first arrived, to keep in
condition. This official was an enthusiastic amateur gardener and
cherished a great love for flowers. Seeing that during his regime we had
received considerate treatment within limitations, we cherished no
grudge against him. Again, the fact that his garden was to be kept going
led us to hope that the duration of Major Bach's reign over us was
merely temporary and that our former guardian would soon be returning.
We knew that in such an event our lot would be rendered far easier, so
we nursed his little plot of ground with every care and displayed just
as much interest in its welfare as if it had been our own. But the old
General never came back to Sennelager, at least not during my period of
imprisonment there.
There was one party of British prisoners whom Major Bach singled out for
especially harsh and brutal treatment. The invincible High Seas Fleet
upon one of its sporadic ventures into salt water during the very
earliest days of the war, stumbled across a fleet of Grimsby trawlers
unconcernedly pursuing their usual peaceful occupation. The whole of the
fishermen were made prisoners and were dispatched to Sennelager.
But Major Bach stedfastly refused to believe that they were simple
fishermen pursuing their ordinary tasks. To his narrow and distorted
mind a man on a trawler was only toiling in the sea for one or both of
two purposes. The one was laying mines; the other was mine-sweeping.
Consequently he decided to mark these unfortunate hardened sea-salts in
a distinguishing manner which was peculiarly his own, thereby rendering
them conspicuous and possible of instant recognition, while in the event
of an escape being attempted, no difficulty would be experienced in
identifying and catching the runaways. Each man was submitted to the
indignity of having one half of his head shaved clean, one half of his
moustache removed, or one half of his beard cut away. The men branded in
this manner presented a strange spectacle, and one which afforded Major
Bach endless amusement. In addition a flaming big "Z" was printed boldly
upon the back of the coat of each man. This letter comprises the initial
of the German word "zivil," and means that the wearer is neither a
criminal nor a military prisoner. It will be observed, however, that
the Commandant declined to recognise these fishermen as being naval
prisoners, which somewhat contradicted his assertion concerning their
alleged crime. At a subsequent date, I might mention, every civilian
prisoner was branded with the "Z" in a similar manner.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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