The distribution of parcels was kept in the hands of the German personnel, and as a result hopeless chaos and congestion reigned. In all previous camps the British had efficiently organised the distribution of their own parcels, no light task in the days when supplies from home were unrationed and one recipient might claim as many as twenty parcels in a week. When the consignments diverted from other camps began to reach Holzminden, the German parcel room was packed from floor to ceiling with the accumulations. The most that Niemeyer would at first allow in the nature of English control in the parcel room was the services of two orderlies. The presence of a British officer in the parcel room, even on parole and for the express purpose of supervising and facilitating delivery, was only permitted when all other attempts to cope with the situation had failed. It was the same with the tin rooms, and here a word of explanation is required. When a prisoner-of-war in Germany drew his parcel from home he might not, strictly speaking, merely walk off with it under his arm. This practice was winked at in many easy camps, but at Holzminden it was rigidly taboo. The regulations stipulated that every article should be strictly censored before issue. It was not enough to shake a tin to ascertain its non-contraband nature. It had to be opened by a German and its contents taken delivery of in a plate or bowl. And if the contents were solid, such as, for instance, a tinned ham, then that ham had to be cut, bisected, quartered, or “Crippened” into just so many fragments as would leave no room for doubt that a compass or a map or a file did not remain concealed. A ham or tongue, of course, was thus ruined. The German employees in the tin room loathed this desecration almost as much as we did; it gave them additional work and seemed to them to be an act of unreasoning vandalism. Poor devils! Some of them were honest, although undoubtedly some stole. But it must have been refined torture for them daily to sniff Elysium and lack its joy, daily to mutilate _delicatessen_ such as they had not tasted for months and months, daily to handle forbidden delights. But they had to do it, for they never knew when the Commandant would not spring a surprise visit on them. I have seen him take out a penknife on such occasions and hack practically into mincemeat a tongue which had been left comparatively whole, full of zest for the service of the Fatherland and threatening dire things to his staff if ever such an object was let off so lightly again.