United States or Bouvet Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The first I heard of it was a letter in the "Continental Times," by Roger Casement's sister, who had been in Germany and had visited some of the prison-camps, and was so pleased with the generous treatment Germany was according her prisoners.
But in the mass they seemed to me decent, simple men, remarkably like our own lads from the Saxon counties of England, though not quite so bright and brisk, as was only natural in their position as prisoners, with all the misery of war in their souls. Afterward they worked with patient industry in the prison-camps and established their own discipline, and gave very little trouble if well handled.
The `Times' publishes an editorial entitled, `Prison Camp Cruelties, the first sentence of which reads: `The fact that American soldiers confined in prison-camps have been treated with extreme brutality may now be regarded as established. So again I write a polite letter to the `Times, pointing out that I think they owe me an apology. And how does the `Times' treat that?
He ran his finger across the gash in his forehead. "That and the ill-treatment I received in the prison-camps made me go wuzzy. The only fact about myself that I could remember in all those years was Maisie. So it's natural that I should come to see her first. I wasn't sure of my own identity until a month ago.
But many more by sickness and in the accursed prison-camps of the English. Again a spasm of pain crossed his face. 'Twenty thousand, he repeated huskily. 'A mere handful. Today we lose as many in a skirmish in the Polish marshes. Then he broke out fiercely.
Hatred at home, inspired largely by feminine hysteria and official propaganda, reached such heights that when fighting-men came back on leave their refusal to say much against their enemy, their straightforward assertions that Fritz was not so black as he was painted, that he fought bravely, died gamely, and in the prison-camps was well-mannered, decent, industrious, good-natured, were heard with shocked silence by mothers and sisters who could only excuse this absence of hate on the score of war-weariness.
According to all accounts received from the French soldiers who are in the prison-camps of Germany, one of the greatest hardships is the lack of white bread, and they have employed various subterfuges in the endeavour to let their relatives know that they wish to have bread sent to them. Some of the Bretons writing home nicknamed bread "Monsieur Barras," and when there was a very great shortage they would write to their families: "Ce pauvre Monsieur Barras ne se porte pas très bien
Our cover was, as Craig and I had decided, to pose as two newspaper men from New York, that being the easiest way to account for any undue interest we might show in things. The powder-company's plant was situated on a large tract of land which was surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, six feet high and constructed in a manner very similar to the fences used in protecting prison-camps in war-times.
They encouraged us to talk about the prison-camps, and of what we had seen in Germany, but it was not long until we became suspicious and careful in our answers.
Every week after this we had a bath, and it was compulsory, too. As prison-camps go, Giessen is a good one. The place is well drained; the water is excellent; the sanitary conditions are good, too; the sleeping accommodations are ample, there being no upper berths such as exist in all the other camps I have seen.
Word Of The Day