The Penn's Grove record., 1917-12-14
GERMAN PRISON
CAMP AS seen
BY AN AMERICAN
Connecticut Man Arrives Home
After Escape Into Sweden
on Fertilizer Boat.
WAS HELD IN THEE PRISONS
Lost 30 Pounds in Seven Months Be
fore Aid Came-Guards Worse off
Than Prisoners and Glad to Get
Scraps from Food the
Y. M. c. A. Sent.

New York.-What is a Gcrmnn rris
on camp like, from the prisoners view
point?
What sort of food, treatment, COM
forts Qf amy do the men receive who
are captured by the Germans?
How do the captives stand German
prison conditions?
Americans are moro than ever vi
tally interested in those questions.
since some of General Pershing's sol
diers were made prisoners n few days
ago in a trench raid in France.
Through the narrative of an Amer
lean adventurer who less than q
month ago escaped from Il German
prison and who had had experience
with two other confinement camps.
the Now York World is able to give
answers II the questions.
Captured by Moewe.
The narra tor is Willet c. Smith of
South Norwalk. Conn. who reached
this country on November 6 from Swe-
den, to which land he escaped from
Lubbock, Germany. by concealing him
self in the mold of a vessel and ex-
listing six days without food or wa
ter.
Smith had been a prisoner, first
aboard the German raider Moewe. then
in camp at Duelmen. her at Brandon
burg and finally at Lubbock. for seven
months and one day. He fled on Octo.
Der II.
Summed up, his testimony is this:
here is no particular brutality, no
clubbing with guns or stabbing with
bayonets as long as prisoners remain
orderly. But the food is insufficient
he fell away from 30 to 1"0 pounds
and long continued subsistence upon
German prison fare alone has most
s%rievous effects Upon the health.
Only the Red Cross and Y. NJ. C. A.
supplies are keeping the prisoners
livo ut some confinement places.
B~randenburg. where about 70N00
prisoners of allied nations were kept,
vas the worst camp Smith encounter
I'd. This is in Prussia. not far from
Berlin. Duelmen. in Westphalia. was
bad enough, although the treatment
was better. At Lubbock. which is not
Il camp but a port where prisoners
IRE worked on the waterfront, condi-
tons were not bad at all.
Guards Worse of.
The German soldiers guarding the
prisoners were far worse off there thar
the captives, Smith declares. Re.
lief organizations keep the prisoner,
supplied with enough food and clothe
to get along with. and the midd'e-agpt
guards, half starving and in patches
beg supplies from their captive enc
mics.
They're sick and Disguised witt
the war. these fellows at Lubbock
Smith says "They would often say
Look at us, without enough to cal
or wear! The kaiser's no earthl.
good! He's crazy. Gcrmany's starry
ing and licked and yet he keeps on
fghting!'
Smith, a railroad brakeman by
trade and a "bOomer' by inclination.
sailed from Newport News on January
% for Liverpool as foreman of 8
American hOrse-wranglers. When his
ship. the British-owned steamer Els
meralda. was IN her return voyage in
March she was captured. robbed and
sunk by the raider Moewe, and her
crew added 70 the prisoners of that adj
v%enturous craft. who numbered at the
end of the Moewe's raiding voyage
above 600.
How the prisoners were shut be-
low, with no nance for their lives,
whenever the Moewe sighted another
vessel, has been told by others, and
Smiths narrative of that need not be
repeated. He arrived with the rest
at Kiel, Germany, on March 81, and
next day. with all the Moewe's pri>-
oners, was sent to Duelmen, Westnha-
liza, Il town about ten miles from the
Holland border.
captors ION Leave.D
Eve We're sent down there in third
class cars" Smith said, with one
guard to each ten men. The guards
were all middle-aged Germans who
had been at the front and who were
home on furlough. They complained
bitterly because when they got a leave
it wasn't really a leave at all. They
had to do guard duty or work in Il
factory or on Il farm. This trip last
ed all night, but we didn't get a scrap,
of food till we had breakfast at Duel
men in the morning.
The camp consisted of a lot CT low,
wooden. implanted shacks. with plain
board floors. Around the walls ran
hunks. one above another. Each bunk
had a bag of straw for Il mattress, and
two medium weight blankets. There
were four of these shacks in each in
closure at Duelmen. Each Enclosure
held about 1000 prisoners, and had a
12-foot barbed wire fence around it,