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
The kind landladies and other kind hearts exist, thank God, on both
sides.[68] To enquire on which side there are most would (even if we
could do so without bias) probably be profitless. The important point is
that the kind hearts on the other side are there, and that a brotherhood
of blessing will help the world more than a brotherhood of revenge—if,
indeed, this last could be any brotherhood at all.
Miss G. H. writes: “I am particularly anxious to do something for
interned Germans. For four months of the war I was in Germany with my
mother, sister, nephew and niece, and we were all most kindly treated
and helped in every possible way both by friends, by my lawyer, my
banker and the neighbouring peasants. Also by all the guards and waiters
along our journey on November 21. Friends, peasants, and my lawyer are
still looking after my property in Germany, and I have left everything
in the hands of a neighbouring peasant, who sends me accounts of it. I
would like to be able to do some kind acts here in return, and for the
furtherance of better relationships later on.” Yet it can never be
pleasant to be in an “enemy” country. Miss H. writes further: “In spite
of having such unspeakable sympathy, really understanding sympathy,
shown me by not only friends, but the common people—though I hardly
like using this term, as no one with so much fellow feeling could really
be termed common—in spite of this kindness, I know so well how one can
suffer. Over there _we_ are looked upon in the same way that Germans are
looked upon here, as quite outside the pale of common morality. Fully
realising what this must mean for me, these kindly Germans would go off
into a day dream of wonderment as to how _they_ might feel in a similar
plight, and one ended up with the reflection, ‘Ja, es ist halt jetzt die
Zeit der Märtyrer’ (it is indeed the time of the martyrs once more).”
Surely there is something strangely poignant about the convinced and
steadfast martyrdom and self-sacrifice of both sides. Surely the peoples
who can thus offer themselves in destroying each other must both have
noble gifts to give together one day in a nobler cause.
The following is from the _Nation_ (Jan. 19, 1918):
A clergyman sends me the following. I think it best to publish
the story as it stands:—
“Some years before the outbreak of war there lived in a certain
German town, now frequently raided by air squadrons, an old
Englishwoman. She was a semi-invalid; difficult and
cantankerous. Subject to illusions, she imagined that the good
nuns, who received her as an unremunerative paying guest, were
in league against her mangy, but beloved dog. Yet both she and
her dog continued to receive the half-humorous tolerance of
their benefactors.
“Then came the 4th of August, 1914, and Miss X. passed into the
mists of war.
“A year later she emerged from the mists.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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