GERMANY IN WAR TIME

Otago Witness, Issue 3195, 9 June 1915, Page 81

GERMANY IN WAR TIME

NEW ZEALAND LADY’S EXPERIENCES.

GERMAN HATRED FOR ENGLAND, DFabv Ona Own Correspondent.)

LONDON, March 2,

A Dunedin lady who was in Germany studying music when the war broke out and spent there, under rather unpleasant restrictions, tho first six months of the operations, has just reached London after a somewhat arduous journey, and she has given me some of her experiences. As a student of two years’ standing at Leipzig she was quite in love with the life in Germany. The conditions of lifo and the style of living were both ideal. Living in rooms, they were excellently catered for by the pension keeper; their days were full of work, and their evenings of social pleasures of a mild sort, chiefly attending theatres and receiving their friends in their rooms and returning their visits. The Germans themselves, at least those of Saxony, do not lead the Bohemian life. Their solid, phlegmatic disposition does not tend that way, but they have a very quick appreciation of anything artistic or original. Yet one has to live amongst them, says the New Zealand student, to realise how more than childish most of them are in their habit of accepting what those in authority say. They do not think for themselves, and in their eyes it will bo almost impertinence to question what is said by those in authority. “The mass of the people truly and honestly believe,” she says, “ that England began the war, or rather was the cause of it.” The extra . “ blatt ” which was posted up outside the Tanagna Theatre in Leipzig—where_ an exhibition was in progress—announcing the declaration of war came as a thunderbolt upon the ideally happy life which the New Zealand student and her Australian girl friend were living. Very soon afterwards they were waited on by a member of the criminal police, armed with a formidable type-written schedule -of particulars about them which were already in possession of the police—all about the visitors who had called upon them, their nationality, when they came, and when they loft. Unfortunately, but quite naturally, most of the visitors had been non-Germans, and neighbours had regarded as suspicious the English conversation which they overheard from the adjoining balcony. FACED BY FACTS. .It was then that the seriousness of the situation began to dawn on the Australasian students. , They could not get away from Leipzig; they could not write letters; their money was running out. Even letters which were written before mobilisation were returned to thorn. The New Zealander managed to get an open jDost card, written m German, through to a friend in Denmark, who in turn sent it on to her banker in London. „ There the signature was recognised, and by and bye money was sent to her through a bank in Denmark and paid by an official in Leipzig, who believed the recipient to be Danish. This overcame the chief worry of paying the rent in advance. Henceforth they could Jive very quietly and economically. The tradespeople were most pleasant, but the students refrained from giving any offence by speaking English. They worked harder t ru n A V^ r ’ , gave up evening walks, and did their best not to give any cause of oitence. But, Oh; the bitterness and the hatred ! The police came again and searched the flat* but finding no bombs or explosives, they went away, merely warnmg the students that they ought not to have anything to with some of their friends, who were Russians. A few weeks later two German boys who had volunteered for service came to say good-bye. They were arrested outside, our door as they were leaving and taken ignominiously to the .nearest police station. They managed to explain, and round came the police again to see if our explanation tallied with theirs, which, fortunately, it did. So they were allowed to go back to their barracks.” ALIEN FEMALES SEGREGATED.

At quite an early stage of the war Germany was flooded with stories of the harsh treatment meted out to Germans in England, and, needless to say, they were all believed, as everything which is printed in a newspaper is implicitly believed in Germany.

The male British subjects had long since been put under restrictions in prison camps, and the female students fully expected that their turn would soon come. By way of preparation for a sudden summons they had packed a kit with some warm clothes and some necessary odds and ends which would probably be overlooked at an emergency. Instead of being taken away they were told to report twice daily at the police station, and they were just congratulating themselves on this leniency when a notice was published proscribing certain areas as places of residence for enemy aliens, Leipzig was one, on account of the Zeppelin depot. This was in November. The New Zealander and her friend, having paid up their rent a quarter ahead, petitioned to be allowed to remain; but they were given two days to pack, and. leaving their stock of coal and their furniture, were taken away to Chemnitz, another large Saxon industrial town. Arriving there in the bitter cold and stow, they had to report at the central police station, where they waited three hours for instructions, before being permitted to go to their hotel. They were not permitted to go beyond the town boundary, and had to report at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. daily. After being kept herded “ with all the suspicious characters imaginable,” they learned that their luggage had been confiscated, and it was only after long and irritating argument that they were allowed to return to the station and take out their greatcoats and hot water bottles. The luggage, too, was eventually restored, with locks broken and everything disarranged. “GOTT STRAFE ENGLAND.” As evidence that England is the archenemy of Germany the 400 Russian men and women who were banished to Chemnitz had only to report to the police twice a week; and Russian men were free while Englishmen had been for weeks interned at Ruhleben. Many Poles, and even Frenchmen, were never interned at all. Food was now an object of solicitude. For fear that people would eat too much, bread was not allowed to be sold until it was throe days old, and persons guilty of throwing away potato parings or any metal at all were fined. In view of the increased value of food to the German population, it occurred to the Australasian girls to petition to be allowed to leave the country. On February 4 they were told that if they got across the frontier by midnight on the

6th they could leave, but if'for any reason at all their journey was delayed, they would have to remain. Money was .essential to pay for the journey, and their funds were getting low. They’ had tried twice unsuccessfully to communicate with England through Holland. Eventually they appealed to the" American consul. “Ho paid our passages for us, and was most kind. Our landlady was a horror, and we had to pay a full month’s rent in advance, but wo got our travelling passes and instructions about trains and began to leave Germany.” The route was officially mapped out, and the prisoners were forbidden to leave any of the many railway stations where they had to change trains. At Magdeburg they were delayed for three hours while many troop trains came and went. Finally, in the early morning, they? were bundled out on the platform at the frontier station of Bentheim and confronted by a formidable row of 'German soldiers, who levelled their rifles when anyone touched her luggage. THE MISSING LETTER. Then came the examination of passports, and as luck would have it the New Zealand student’s contained an irregularity. She must go back to Leipzig to a concentration camp. It wa? some time before the cause of the hitcl' was apparent. “I had always signed iV/self ‘May,’ ” says my informant, “but the police had insisted that I should write the full name, and for their benefit in one place I had written ‘Mary.’ I was desperate. Looking round for the most amiable looking officer, I used the utmost powers of persuasion in Gorman, and eventually ho came over to my boxes and I hunted for something that would convince him that May and Mary wore one and the same. Unfortunately I had destroyed my letters, and it was only' when I had almost abandoned hope that I found a telegram which had been addressed to me in New Zealand by Mr Mackenzie (the High Commissioner) before I loft home. Ihcro it was—‘Miss May After much talking and many decided refusals the superior officer at length allowed me to pass.” The search of persons and luggage was so thorough that the train loft without the fugitives, but they had some hours to spare, and eventually passed over into Holland. _ Feeling in Holland they found to be very bitter against the Gormans. “Everywhere you turn the Dutch are terrified of becoming a second Belgium. In Amsterdam there was quite a panic; people could speak of nothing but the threatened blockade. We expected to be able to communicate with England easily from Holland, but one gets chary of taking risks, so I decided to get to England before the blockade began on the 18th. It was a queer feeling arriving alone at Victoria station. lam here for the first time in my life, but it is good to bo amongst friends again and to hear English spoken, and to be able to epeak it. Since I got across the German frontier and have heard something of what has really been happening, I have been haunted by the desire to get some word of the truth sent back there. We felt exactly as though we had been buried alive for those six months. They told us that every German, man, woman, and child in England was not onlyin prison but undergoing the most horrible ill-treatment. They never ceased to tell us how lucky we were to bo in Germany.”