VICTIM OF GERMAN HATE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LII, Issue 15948, 19 June 1915, Page 2 (Supplement)

VICTIM OF GERMAN HATE.

NEUTRAL lady ill-treated.

SUBJECTED TO BRUTAL SEARCH. A r.KMAitKABLK narrative of the indigni-! ties to which an American woman was subjected in Germany was given to a. Daily Mail representative by Miss Mary Beyle O'Reilly, a well-known American journalist. 1 /. While h Copenhagen Miss O'Reilly was asked by her editor to go to The Hague to report the Women's Peace Congress. Her passport was in perfect order and vised by the German Consul in Copenha gen, and she tried to take the shortest route over German territory to Holland, travelling by boat to Warnemunde and on by way of Hamburg. "On landing at Warnemunde,'' she srvs, " a German who looked and spoke just like an Englishman asked my name and then referred to a list of names in an indexed book. Probably he had recorded there the facts that I had written for publication the facts as I saw them after the German invasion of Belgium. Under his instructions my bag was searched by. four soldiers. My letters of ir.tioduction were stolen, as well as an English sovereign and some books. "Forbidden to Enter." "Four tiny toy animals that I had bought for my nieces were discovered to have been procured in Russia. ilh great seriousness the German said : 'These must be utterly destroyed.' I replied with equal seriousness : ' Germany is certainly 'at war.'

" I had then to submit to a brutal personal search, my dresses and the boots I was wearing being ripped open. 1 was ordered to return to the boat and my passport was marked 'Forbidden to enter Germany.' While I was in the boat the English-speaking German asked me: 'Do you wish the Fatherland to be victorious?' I replied: ''No.' After sonic further questions, he said : ' The Americans are sending England ammunition, without which flic English could not beat us. — the Americans!' Constrast in Denmark. "On my return, when the boat again touched German soil the officers on board would only put down a steep and narrow plank for me to walk ashore, refused to help me with my baggage, and jeered at me as I made the perilous ascent.

" In Denmark the contrast in my treatment was very pleasant, for everyone tried all they could to help me, saying that they hated the Germans."

Miss O'Reilly declared that the socalled Women's Peace Congress. was really packed and organised by the Germane. " Sixty of the Swedish delegates went far out of their way to Berlin en route for The Hague."