The Better Germany in War Time: Being Some Facts Towards FellowshipPicton, Harold W. (Harold Williams)
History
The Better Germany in War Time: Being Some Facts Towards Fellowship
Picton, Harold W. (Harold Williams)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Hospitals, charities, etc.; World War, 1914-1918 -- Prisoners and prisons, German
Here also is a fact that should give us pause. In a prisoner camp at
Frankfurt a-Oder is a large building erected as a place of entertainment
and general meeting hall. It is used by Russian prisoners, and _a
considerable contribution towards its erection was collected by
house-to-house visitation in Frankfurt._ To appreciate this fact at its
true significance we must remember that Germany suffered from direct
invasion by Russia immediately on the outbreak of the war, and that all
the stories of atrocities and devastation that we heard of Belgium were
also told of East Prussia.
“An old friend of our family,” a correspondent writes, “has been
residing in Bavaria over forty years. He is an artist, and married a
Bavarian lady. His eldest son is a doctor in London, and two of his
daughters are married in London, but the father has no difficulty in
getting permits to paint in the Austrian and German mountains, and still
finds a sale for his pictures in Germany.”
Forty years is, I know, a long time, but not by any means always
sufficient to prevent persecution in the present war. On my writing
table is a little ivory elephant. It was carved by a German who had been
forty years in the service of one British firm. He was dismissed (a man
over seventy) because of the war. This is not a unique case. “N.S.,
clock-maker, who had been here thirty-nine years, and P.W., baker, fifty
years. (He had two sons at the front, and ‘the longer he thought the
more the number of his English grandchildren grew.’)” (See the Third
Report of the Emergency Committee for these and other cases).
I do not in the least wish to suggest that there has been little
kindness on this side and much on the other. I am simply trying to
restore the balance. So far (as is usual in war-time) the game of hatred
has been played with loaded dice. Let us welcome kindness everywhere.
Here, then, is a different kind of story from one of the Friends’
reports:
A young man, smart and erect three months ago when he was in
employment, intelligent, speaks and writes four languages, with
excellent references, now but a sad wreck, wants to go to South
Africa, where he has friends, but, alas! the permit is
refused—has written abroad to his father, who is in a good
position, for money, but it takes so long to get a reply. His
English landlady, though poor, “has been so kind,” he had his
last dinner three days ago from her. We give temporary help, but
if this money does not come before January 1 he will have to go
into camp. Quite willing to do so, “but can we not give his poor
landlady something?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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