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
Both reports of Dr. Taylor [Miscel. No. 18 (1916) and Miscel. No. 21
(1916)] are important studies of the question of nutrition, and his
short discussion (No. 18, p. 4) of the psychological aspects of
monotonous diet and the nutritional effects of internment is worth
careful attention. “A diet that would be tolerated if the subject were
at liberty may become intolerable under conditions of imprisonment.
There is a large personal equation operative in this direction. The
soldier imbued with a high sense of his value to his country and of the
justice of his cause will endure a monotonous diet that would not be
endurable in the prisoner overwhelmed with disappointment and crushed
with sorrow.” These considerations are obviously of general application.
SOME COMPARISONS.
Mr. Gerard, in a note of June 28, 1916 [Miscel. No. 25 (1916)],
animadverts strongly on the bad accommodation still provided at
Ruhleben. The letter is rather strikingly different in tone from his
other reports on Ruhleben.
It is intolerable that people of education should be herded six
together in a horse’s stall, and in some of the lofts the bunks
touch one another. The light for reading is bad, and reading is
a necessity if these poor prisoners are to be detained during
another winter. In the haylofts above the stables the conditions
are even worse.[24]
Bishop Bury’s account (“My Visit to Ruhleben,” p. 30) reads:
I don’t know whether it was our internment at Newbury,[25] the
race-course for Reading, or our using race-courses, such as
Kempton Park, for the training of our own men, which caused
Ruhleben to be chosen in November, 1914, as a suitable place for
civilians’ internment.... Without any description of mine it may
be easily understood what they had to suffer until proper
arrangements were made.... The loose boxes are now properly
fitted with bunks, some being larger than others. The large
corridor, with its stone floor, gives air and space, the lofts
particularly being extremely well adapted now for their present
purpose. I prefer the lofts to the boxes, because they have
corridors out of which one can look, whereas the windows in the
boxes are usually far above the ground. I went to tea more
frequently in the boxes, and on one occasion we sat down sixteen
in number—rather a crowd—but we were quite comfortable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account