Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-05-13

were kept at Swinemuende until the
5tn of January.
from the barracks and told we were
going to Neustrelitz. 1t was pitch
black. there was binding owstorm
raging and the cold was bitter. There
wasn't warmly clothed prisoner in the
lot. l wore a suit Of thin underwear,
shoes. trousers and my ulster. l had
no socks. overshirt or coat beneath my
ulster but was comparatively fortu-
nate. Three horsemen stood in the
snow waiting in their bare feet. A
Spanish stoker was clothed in only a
suit of underwear. one boot and one
shoe and a cap. Shivering, under
nourished. number of the men sick,
a few still suffering from wounds re-
boarded the train. At Altdam we each
received a dish of rice 1t was our
breakfast and dinner.
1t was near midnight when we reach
ed Neustrelitz. with the thermometer
at eighteen degrees below zero and the
ground covered with ice and snow.
One of the men, with socks. but no
shoes, complained that he couldn't
walk. His feet were turning black.
frozen from the exposure. and later
one foot was amputated. The bar
racks were unheated. but we did re-
ceive two blankets each-soaking wet.
from the snow. l felt exhausted and
weak from lack of rest and food. but
found 1 wasn't tired enough to sleep.
I walked up and down the barracks
until / fell. entirely exhausted. and
then at last, in spite of the cold and
dampness, / got to sleep.
Is
The food given US was merely re-
cooked garbage with little bread
Rotten as it was. there was SO little of
it that it wasn't long before we We're
glad to eat all we could get of it, Oc-
casionally we had turnips.a small por-
ton for days ration, and sometimes
a black mixture or water and boiled
berries or decayed herbs called coffee
each day, almost vIslDiy. A ships
doctor told me that ii that kind OF fare
was continued it was impossible for a
man to exist over six months. He said
that there was so little food value IN
what little food we received that
half years time would see every man
dead OF slow starvation.
The fifth day there, three of us, a
spaniard, Norwegian and myself-we
thought it best to have neutrais do the
taIking-protested to one OF the officers
about the meager rations. We told
him it was starvation by inches He
was courteous, but explained in very
good English that 1t was impossible to
(
ly didn't realize the conditions Some
of us were neutrals and we were being
starved. He smiled. You are now in
the hands of the German government"
he SAID. We are under orders from
Berlin. These orders are absolute and
cannot be changed except by Berlin"
He smiled again ana walked away,
The smile made me shudder We were
in the iron clutch of the Prussian
mailed fist. The intense cold continued.
Some OF the prisoners, without SHOES,
others without trousers and most ali
without heavy coats OF any kind were
half dead. They would lie,
numb and in half stupor. in the bar
racks for twenty-four hours at time,
too weak to take exercise to keep warm.
We did finally receive few articles of
clothing, taken from dead Russian pris-
oners.
At last we got word 20 prepare to
leave Neustrelitz. We had been there
a month. 1t seemed like a year. We
were happy. One chap went
partly out of his mind and became hy.-
terical. We felt sure we were to he
released, but 1t was a vain hope On
February 5 we left for Karlsruhe and
arrived there the Sth. We were on the
train f1fty-three hours; there was no
heat in the coaches. and almost no food
was given us.
The Karlsruhe concentration camp
we arrived there at 3 p.m.-had the same
conditions as the Neustrelitz camp, ex-
cept for one thing. We were provided
with excitement at Karlsruhe, and didn't
have to wait long for it.
On the second night we heard steam