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 “Stobsiad,” the magazine of the prisoners’ camp at Stobs, Scotland,
contains in its seventeenth number (Jan., 1918) a friendly thought for
the interned “enemy” in Germany. The Y.M.C.A. and the Friends tell them
of the ever-increasing need of the interned Englishmen for English
books. “Would it not be possible,” the paragraph proceeds, “for our
German readers to place English books that they could part with at the
disposal of the English prisoners of war, just as here German books have
been placed at our disposal. Dr. Elisabeth Rotten’s Committee (Berlin,
No. 24, Monbijou-Platz 3) will gladly give further information. It would
give us pleasure if many of our readers would fulfil this wish.”
UNRELIABLE COMPLAINTS.
“There has been some trouble with correspondence,” we read (_Times_,
l.c.). The Commandant of one camp, while censoring a prisoner’s
correspondence, came across a statement that “he slept on a plank bed
with a verminous mattress ... the prisoner admitted that he had written
a false statement in order to induce his friends to send him more
luxuries.” I am reminded of a report from Zossen mentioned by the Swiss
Red Cross delegate. I quote from the abstract in the _Basler
Nachrichten_: “It appears that there is much correspondence with
sympathetic ink at Zossen. A great deal of iodine, starch and condensed
milk are sent to the prisoners by their friends. These materials serve
for the preparation of such inks.” We have heard of the use of
sympathetic ink in this country. Experience suggests that complaints
made by these methods are not to be relied on. The man who likes to tell
a tall story is not very infrequent, either amongst civilians or
soldiers, and if he can gain notoriety or advantage thereby, the
temptation is considerable. Let these be obtained at the expense of the
enemy, and the temptation is greater still. Some German girls were being
taken back to Germany. An officer asked a girl what kind of a time she
had in England. “Oh, dreadful,” she replied at first. It was the way to
gain kudos. But generosity came to her rescue, she repented and
corrected herself: “No, perfectly lovely,” she said, “everyone was good
to us.”[12] There are many on both sides who would not repent, but would
make capital out of their interlocutor’s ignorance.
RUMOURS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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