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Updated: June 5, 2025
Consequently, beyond telling me to get on with my work he never ventured another word, nor did his attitude towards me change in any way. Afterwards I congratulated myself upon having responded to second thoughts to return to the camp. I learned that the chances of escaping from Sennelager were most slender.
You've been told that you are going back to England. That was a mistake. You will get to work at once!" It was about a fortnight after my arrival at Sennelager. Our rest had been rudely disturbed about the usual hour of 2 a.m. by the sentry who came clattering into the barrack roaring excitedly, "Dolmetscher! Dolmetscher!"
An enquiry, the first and only one ever authorised by the Germans upon their own initiative, was held to investigate the treatment of prisoners of war at Sennelager. The atrocities were such that no German, steeped though he is in brutality, could credit them. The Commission certainly prosecuted its investigations very diligently, but it is to be feared that it gained little satisfaction.
Indeed, the one or two attempts which were made to impress us to toil on the land, proved highly disastrous because considerable damage was inflicted from our ignorance of agriculture and gardening. Some of us were given the garden which belonged to the old General who had been in charge at Sennelager when we first arrived, to keep in condition.
However, unfortunately for me, the bread did not go far enough, the outcome being an outburst of further trouble. As I had expected, my room was preferred to my company in that kitchen and I was deposed. While in Sennelager I had been sedulously keeping an elaborate diary in which I entered details of every incident that befell the camp.
But the German authorities arbitrarily assessed his age at 54 years, and such it had to be so long as it suited their purpose. He had toured the vaudeville theatres and music halls in Germany for over 20 years, but he was rounded up, and despite all his protestations concerning his age was interned at Sennelager. The age of the poor old fellow was perfectly obvious.
The circumstance that this charge was still hanging over my head came as an ugly eye-opener to me. I thought from my transference from Wesel to Sennelager that I had been acquitted of this accusation. Of course I had never received any official intimation to this effect, but on the other hand I had never received a sentence.
I recalled the unhappy scenes I had witnessed around the railway terminus at Berlin under similar conditions, but that was paradise to the field at Sennelager Camp on the fateful night of September 11. It appeared as if the Almighty Himself had turned upon us at last, and was resolved to blot us from the face of the earth.
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the statement, but I do not think there is the slightest reason to doubt the word of our compatriot, because he was in Sennelager at the time and actually passed through the experience. Furthermore it is typical of Teuton methods in matters pertaining to the treatment of prisoners.
In the early days we were entirely dependent upon the authorities for our food supplies, and they were invariably inadequate, while still more often the victuals were disgustingly deficient in appetising qualities. There were no facilities whatever for supplementing the official rations by purchases from a canteen such as we had enjoyed for a time at Sennelager.
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