Peace; World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives
Although the Americans were sympathizing with all this sorrow they had
plenty of worries of their own. By half-past eight in the morning and at
three in the afternoon, there were such crowds of people gathered before
the small banks and ticket agents that it was next to hopeless to get in
without being crushed, even if one wanted tickets or money. The Germans,
Russians and English were foremost in these crowds, for the Germans felt
they had to get home while the Russians or English wanted to escape
being taken prisoners. Being an American, I felt that I was well
protected until one morning I was stopped by a German and was accused of
being a Russian. One day two of these men stopped me and I understood
enough of what they were saying to know that they wanted to prove that I
was a spy. Fortunately I had my passport with me, and that was enough to
prove that I was an innocent American looking for friends and money
instead of working with bombs.
The Americans in our sanitarium were fairly quiet until the word came
that the banks were closed; at least, they would only give out money on
German letters of credit. This information was aggravated by the fact
that England had closed the cable in Germany. Paradoxical as it may
seem, it was strange to us that the days moved on just the same, the
days multiplied themselves into a week, and we had a board-bill staring
us in the face with no prospect of money. I thought our host might be
kind enough not to present us with a bill at the end of the week, but it
came in just as usual. I was so angry that I left it there for a week
without looking at it. I soon made up my mind if I could not get out of
Germany the best thing to do was to bring some money into Germany.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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