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Updated: June 5, 2025
The lying Commandant of Sennelager Camp was thus condemned out of his own mouth, while the minute precautions he observed to prevent the mysterious stranger from learning a word about our experiences on the field proves that he merely turned us out into the open, herded like animals in a corral, to satisfy his own personal cravings for dealing out brutality and torture.
Bleeding and torn they had been bundled unceremoniously into a train, herded like cattle, and had been four days and nights travelling from the battlefield to Sennelager. During these 96 hours they had tasted neither food nor water!
The canteen being closed we could not make up the deficiency even at our own expense. My health was now giving way, as a result of my privations in Wesel prison, accentuated by the indifferent and insufficient food and hard work at Sennelager. I was assigned to various light duties.
What is it? Where is it?" came the eager request. "The military camp at Sennelager!" Although it was 9.25 Tuesday evening when we boarded the train in Wesel station, en route for the "luxurious hotel where we were to receive every kindness consistent with the noblest traditions of German honour," there did not appear to be any anxiety to part with our company.
They forgot their sufferings, and were even bandying jest and joke. Their cheeriness under the most terrible conditions was soul-moving. No one can testify more truthfully to the Tapley cheeriness of the British soldier under the most adverse conditions than the little knot of civilian prisoners at Sennelager when brought face to face for the first time with the fearful toll of war.
Two minutes later I was striding rapidly towards the station, accompanied by another prisoner, a schoolmaster named E , who had also been released on a "pass" and whom I have to thank for much assistance subsequently offered. At last I was free from the torment and brutality of Sennelager Camp.
Their persistent and untiring, as well as elaborate precautions to make trebly certain that I had forgotten all about the period of travail at Sennelager, before I was allowed to come home, were amusing, and offer adequate testimony to the fear with which the German Government dreads the light of publicity being shed upon its Black Hole.
The German authorities, in the most petty manner, often concealed from me the presence of British prisoners, especially civilians, in prison camps. For a long time I was not informed of the presence of British civilians in Sennelager and it was only by paying a surprise visit by motor to the camp at Brandenburg that I discovered a few British, the crew of a trawler, there.
But the disinfecting apparatus was delivered in what we always found to be the typical German manner. The fumigator came to hand but without the engine to drive it. Two or three days later we were informed that there was a traction engine at Paderborn which was to be brought into Sennelager Camp to act as the stationary engine to supply power to the fumigator.
Were we not civilian prisoners of war: the victims of circumstances under the shield of the best traditions of German honour? But we were not the first arrivals at Sennelager. We were preceded by a few hours by a party of French soldiers captives of war. They were extremely sullen. Travel and battle-stained they crouched and stretched themselves upon the ground.
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