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Authors: Jennifer Hobhouse Balme
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soon we covered the 10 or 12 miles to Spandau. Rieth had brought lunch and we stopped inside the camp and ate sandwiches early though it was, for I saw a long and tiring day and no chance of food therein. Afterwards the gentlemen acknowledged my forethought.
I was taken first to the offices where I was received by Count Schwerin the German Commandant of the Camp. He was a handsome old man with a fine presence and a most benign countenance â one loved him instinctively and from all, of both sides, one heard only good of him. He was really beloved and known to have done the best in his power to make Camp life endurable. He was full of the interest of it and spoke of the prisoners as âmeine grosse Familieâ. Long and very boring explanations were given me in the office about the system employed and the autonomy granted â and at my request facts and figures about those who had left and those who were on the list desiring to leave. For many reasons large numbers of the elderly men did not wish to go back to England having their wives etc. and businesses in Germany. Those who did want to return were of military age and of course could not, unless invalids. At the moment only nine were applying for exchange. The monthly date for leaving was the 6th.
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 â I think Simmons. It was curiously stirring to be in a Camp again â 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 â 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 â 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 â 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 â 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
I was taken first to the offices where I was received by Count Schwerin the German Commandant of the Camp. He was a handsome old man with a fine presence and a most benign countenance â one loved him instinctively and from all, of both sides, one heard only good of him. He was really beloved and known to have done the best in his power to make Camp life endurable. He was full of the interest of it and spoke of the prisoners as âmeine grosse Familieâ. Long and very boring explanations were given me in the office about the system employed and the autonomy granted â and at my request facts and figures about those who had left and those who were on the list desiring to leave. For many reasons large numbers of the elderly men did not wish to go back to England having their wives etc. and businesses in Germany. Those who did want to return were of military age and of course could not, unless invalids. At the moment only nine were applying for exchange. The monthly date for leaving was the 6th.
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 â I think Simmons. It was curiously stirring to be in a Camp again â 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 â 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 â 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 â 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 â 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
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