Agent of Peace (14 page)

Then we went to inspect the camp and the old Count hearing I was weakly insisted, rather tryingly, upon offering me his arm, a thing so boring to us. However I was quickly introduced to Capt Powell the elected English Captain of the camp and his next in Command whose name I forget – I think Simmons. It was curiously stirring to be in a Camp again – with all its sordidness and all its artificiality, its neatness and its squalor, its dun colour and monotony, its forlorn efforts to find amusement and occupation, its shabbiness and the worn strained faces of the inmates.

Only in this camp there were no children, no raging sicknesses, no starvation, no skeletons, no deaths. The problem was different to that which had faced me sixteen years before in South Africa. All Camps are odious – that is the basis from which one must start in speaking of them. That odiousness is accentuated in the early days of formation because the inmates are brought together in a hurry with nothing ready for them – supplies, shelter or sanitation.

From that odiousness Ruhleben was not free, but given that, and all the suffering it involved, I can and must truthfully say that Ruhleben Camp was not a bad one – that much was done for the amusement and occupation and instruction of the inmates, that the food was good (the bread coarse but wholesome) and kindness shown by the Enemy authorities.

Nevertheless a cloud lay upon the Camp and as I walked about with the group of companions, often I was alone with Captain Powell and learnt from him of the mental and nervous strain becoming more marked, especially amongst the older men. I talked with several of these and found them in a strange condition. Capt Powell begged me to do all possible to get out the men of 45 and over, saying he just could not pull them through another winter and they infected the whole camp. Without them he felt the younger men could brace themselves to face it out. I promised to leave no stone unturned when I reached England to plead for their release. Moreover I spoke to many lads as well as old men and became more and more sure that the problem was mental and psychological not material. Some of the younger men also showed signs of great strain.

The civilian internees seem in every country less able to bear detention than do military prisoners of war and this for several reasons.

1st They feel Fate has been unfair to them.

2nd They have never been under discipline.

3rd They have not escaped from the more awful sufferings of war – the trenches etc.

4th They are usually older men and less adaptable.

5th The majority are married men and anxious about wives and families.

6th They are hurriedly taken from businesses without time to arrange - the future dark.

7th They have had no opportunity of having their fling – doing their bit – showing their loyalty.

8th Consequently try to shew loyalty to their country by the only means open to them viz putting themselves into a state of mental hostility to everything and everybody about them – even the food is ‘hostile'.

9th To maintain this mental hostility at white heat is before long to become mentally deranged.

Dr Ella Scarlett Synge
*
has issued a good report of this Camp, so it is hardly necessary for me to dwell upon what I soon saw were the less pressing and important features of the life. I mean the kitchens, the food itself, the Canteen, the sleeping and living arrangements, Washing and Sanitation.

I thought the food good and excellently cooked and as much as the conditions in Germany made possible. Potatoes and fish that day and both were first rate. In a smaller kitchen men could, for 1d or 2d, have camp food fried or done up in some way and their own English parcel food also cooked for them.

The parcel delivery office was an immense business – dealing out some 1,250 parcels every morning. 39,000 parcels
**
had arrived during the month of my visit. In all the time the Camp had been running only two or three parcels had been missed out of this vast number streaming in.

There were many amusements golf, football, sports of various kinds – a great space for all this – Cinema, Theatre and Company performing constantly, arts and crafts – an Exhibition of work proceeding – small gardens, poultry keeping – occupations of a more serious nature. Shops of many trades – two dentists, Police force of fifty strong. University attended by 250 with 9 or 10 professors, a library, hall, separate rooms for languages nicely furnished. YWCA hall, Protestant and Catholic Churches and a Restaurant nicely arranged where the older or more weakly might take their meals.

I thought in comparison with the many blessings of the Camp (as Camps go) that the sleeping accommodations came off worst though that was not bad as in the Boer Camps. I thought the men kept their barracks very dirty, and I told them so. Their excuse was ‘no time'!!! Yet there were hundreds of merchant seamen there well accustomed to keep the deck of a ship spotless.

I saw the hospital for temporary illnesses and the doctor – a long and rather low building which did not look very inviting. There have, I am told, been only about six deaths in the camp and the health is good.

It was a long day. I seemed to be ‘taking in' at every pore and felt much exhausted. At the end I asked leave to speak a few words to Capt Powell and his ‘Aide' and I sat down and told them how much we felt for them and how none better than I knew the awfulness of Camp life. I told them of my experience of sixteen years ago – and of the awful camps we gave the Boer Women who with their children lay down and died without a murmur. I assured them that by comparison they were fortunate in Ruhleben, but that it was a hateful system and I would do my best in London to obtain release or exchange first for over 45 – then for all. They must not think they would be forgotten etc etc.

I afterwards wrote a little letter to the Camp – on these lines and showing how they too, each one, held something of the honour of England in their hands to uphold or to mar as really any soldier in the trenches. This letter I sent to the Foreign Office open to be transmitted to Count Schwerin if he thought fit to communicate it to the Camp. I wrote it because the men seemed to me to need above all things a mental and spiritual tonic.

Large numbers of the men drew up to see us drive away; it gave a horrible pang to go away and leave them there – such a forlorn and despairing atmosphere hung about them. It was one of the most painful moments of my life and as such will always be remembered and the whole issue is stamped indelibly on my mind. The gates fell to and it was over. I was almost dead with exhaustion. I had been on my legs for hours – bad enough by itself and in addition going through tense mental work and strong emotion, having at the same time to be wary, offend none and keep outwardly calm.

And yet the mere physical control of my heart seemed to want all my limited powers.

Sanatorium at Charlottenburg

We drove to the Sanatorium in Charlottenburg where Dr. Weiler had his patients – those suffering mentally. There were about sixty patients at that moment – housed excellently in four or five well-furnished villas in a quiet avenue each in a pleasant garden. An Arab, a Jamaican negro etc, were amongst them. I spoke cheerful words to all. Dr. Weiler and an Assistant shewed me all. The treatment seemed excellent – in two classes – those paying for themselves and those paid for thro' the American Embassy. The former were in a really beautifully furnished villa, with single bedrooms like boudoirs. A group of men were here who made a very bad impression on me – real bounders – mostly suffering from heart trouble for which they had been going through a course at [Bad] Nauheim and there captured – their complaints were childish and ridiculous. I spoke very gently to them and explained matters, the doctor also spoke very
gently. We did not forget they were heart patients. But they were unreasonable to an extent which showed they were also suffering mentally. Yet they were enjoying every comfort, even luxury, with the one great exception of their liberty and the need of obeying a few disciplinary rules such as lights out at 9 p.m. and no gambling for high stakes allowed.

I had far more pity for the men in the second class, who were two or three in a room (large airy pleasant rooms looking on the garden) for they were many of them in a sad condition bordering on insanity. I can't forget Mr Brakewell – an artist – or old David Lloyd (70) a seaman and others.

It is impossible in this short account to give any idea of the piled up information gained that long day by my own eyes and ears – apart entirely from the official side put before me, or the prisoners' side to some extent told me.

I shall always remember it as one of the fullest and intensist [
sic
] days of my life – during which every moment was lived by one's every faculty of mind and body to the fullest possible extent. And through all was the great drain upon one's sympathy.

We drove rapidly to the hotel. I was much exhausted – and thankful that the two men departed, appreciating my desire to rest. But I had not been long on my sofa before Elisabeth Rotten arrived bringing the dear old Frau Minna Cauer with her. We talked long and fully. Elisabeth Rotten confirmed that there could be no great need of food in Ruhleben as men allowed out on parole from there had proposed to her a plan for sending out parcels for a help for their families.

Frau Cauer was so sweet – she thanked me so earnestly for coming – she was deeply moved as she asked with tears streaming down her face: ‘Dear, dear Miss Hobhouse – Why, tell me why, does all the world hate us so?' She went on: ‘My people are honest, they are industrious and mind their own business and to me it seems without detracting from any other nation much less the English whom I have always admired – that my people are capable and clever and industrious. Why then are we hated?'

I could only say that I thought the dislike lay in that very fact – they were too capable and successful and the result was fear and jealousy from which hatred had grown.

They had been with me an hour when Dr. Alice Salomon came to take me to see Heine. It was a fine evening and we took an old open cab such as adorned the streets of Berlin at this moment and drove to a distant restaurant where it would be convenient for him to meet us. Dr. Alice asked me to come afterward and sup with her – about 8.30 p.m. I had had no dinner, only those early sandwiches about 9.30 a.m. outside Ruhleben, and hardly a mouthful for tea and was faint with exhaustion. I felt I should not even hear what Heine said unless I were refreshed. So at the Restaurant while Dr. Alice went upstairs to look for him I asked for a cup of cocoa. I was vexed afterwards for I think she was surprised as if it reflected upon her hospitality and to my regret she insisted upon paying for it and adding biscuits. I was then able to hold out – but I noticed that she remarked several times that it would be a ‘light' supper. Afterwards I understood more clearly why.

Heine came and impressed me very deeply, a grave weighty man. He spoke slowly and very clearly so that I understood nearly all he said and Dr. Salomon interpreted the rest. He is highly thought of in the Reichstag, a fine speaker – a leader of the Majority Socialists – who followed the government to war on account of the danger from Russia. He made me grasp as never before the way in which Germans regard Russia – it looms large in their eyes. He spoke chiefly, however, of the food question – and scouted the idea that it would oblige the government to make peace. He said people were suffering and would have to suffer privation – but that scarcity need never have been if the government had taken it in hand soon enough. He said that at the beginning of the Blockade the Social Democrats had drawn up a scheme of distribution and presented it to the Government. This (like all Governments) took no heed, and luxury and waste continued. Now point by point that scheme was being adopted. Meanwhile there had been a year's needless waste. He spoke of the ‘great push' expected to begin in a few days. (It did begin in fact June 25th, two days later.)

It was a long interesting strangely moving conversation, as we three sat round the little table in the third-rate Restaurant – speaking in low earnest voices. At last he excused himself and bid us farewell and we went out to find a rare cab. With difficulty this was done – a strange old man to drive us and we reached Dr. Salomon's beautiful little flat. It was interesting this peep of a German ‘professional' woman's flat. She had one maid and supper was ordered. While we talked, she told me much of her life, her work, her love for Lady Aberdeen (2nd mother to her) in whose house in Ireland she had been staying when the war broke out. She sent messages to Lady Aberdeen. At last supper was ready – and it certainly was light. In a moment I realised how short food was in private houses. There was an omelet made of one egg for the two of us, there were three very small and very thinly cut slices of bread – there was a very small dish of stewed cherries. In addition there was a small block of butter 3oz the total supply per head for two weeks. I realized I must only make a feint of taking any and just scraped it with my knife. As to the omelet we took tiny mouthfuls and eked them out with much conversation. She said they were content and were learning something fresh every day. Formerly they had cooked with so much butter and fat, now they adopted the English fashion of grilling their meat over the fire and found it enjoyable. She spoke much of the care Municipalities and Societies were taking of the poor and of expectant mothers.

It was still broad daylight when, after 10 p.m., the old cabman came again and she packed me in and told him to drive me home – which he did and I enjoyed the quiet drive in the late evening light. It was 11 p.m. when I reached the hotel after a very full day.

Thursday, June 22nd
Up early. Falkenhausen 'phoned he would come round about midday and lunch with me. Rieth 'phoned from the Foreign Office for particulars about my English Passport. Baron von Ow also 'phoned from the FO to ask if he might come and see me at 11 a.m. Finally he came but rather late – a nice young man who had been in S. Africa at outbreak and got back from there to find himself under surveillance in London. Spoke of the great kindness he had received from Dr. Markel, whom he said I must see and thank - also the diamond king Ludwig Breitmeyer – messages also to many who had befriended him in England. While we were talking my Baron and his wife came and I had to introduce them. They were a bit stiff. Soon Count Harrach came also and we chatted awhile at length till we separated for luncheon.