INTERNMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 147, 23 June 1934, Page 2 (Supplement)

INTERNMENT.

A CLASSIC OF CAPTIVITY.

Every week sees some addition to the vast bulk of literature dealing with the life of soldier aiul civilian during the Great War, but none of these volumes is more worthy of a permanent place in literature than "Black Monastery," by Aladar Kuncz (Chatto and Windus), tlic story of one wlio during those years lived the even less endurable life of an interne. Like many of his countrymen at that time, Aladar Kuncz, a young Hungarian schoolmaster, was an ardent Francophile, coming every holiday to study French culture and customs, so that when he first hoard o? the outbreak of war during his stay at a tiny Breton village, ho could not imagine himself suffering any harm at the hands of a nation he so truly admired. But when lie reachcd Paris he found himself already an enemy, unable to get home or even to communicato or obtain funds. After some days of growing despair he was herded with .several score others —Germans, Turks, Austrians—many of them residents in Paris of many years standing, to Perigueux, where they were im{irisoncd in an empty garage. The story legins gently, but as the years of uncertainty and imprisonment lengthen out, as they are moved from Perigueux to Noirmoutier (the Black Monastery) and from there to L'lle d'Yeu, a disused island prison of incredible foulness, the story becomes jnore and more powerful. Yet the weariness of those years, the brutality of the prison officials, the privations, disease, hunger and incessant physical suffering of all kinds, are described with a restraint and tolerance which make it an infinitely more impressive work than cruder tales of violence and horror. The characters of many of his fellow prisoners are excellently drawn, and an absorbing story is woven out of the intrigues and changing human relationship of this cramped little community. But even the end of the war brought no relief to the main tragedy. For months after the signing of the Armistice they stayed there as if forgotten by all the world, while influenza rages, amongst them, and not until May were the remnants of their company ordered home. Yet the homecoming, which they had imagined for years as a scene of brilliance and happiness, was perhaps the height of the tragedy. "There were very few people in the streets, the shops were shut, the houses neglected and dirty, as though a storm had swept through the town. Everything had aged and grown gloomy and turned its head away wearily, and thfi red flags hanging everywhere Were like big red patches of blood against a smoky haze. . . . We had returned, Ffom pain to greater pain."