The Twin City star. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1910-19??, 1917-12-15
Connecticut Man Arrives Home
After Escape Into Sweden
on Fertilizer Boat.
WAS HELD IN THREE PRISONS
Lost 80 Pounds In Seven Months BE.
fore Aid came-Guards Worse on
Than Prisoners and Glad to Get
Scraps from Food the
Y. M. c. A. Sent.

New York.--What is German pris-
on camp like, from the prisoners view
point?
What sort Of food, treatment, COM
forts (if any do the men receive who
are captured by the Germalisf
How do the captiyes stand German
prison conditioner
Americans are more than ever VI
tally interested in these questions,
since some Of General Pershing's SOL
diers were made prisoners few days
ago In II trench raid In France.
Through the narrative of an Amer.
lean adventurer who less than a
month ago escaped from a German
prison and who had had experience
with two other confinement camps,
the New York World Is able to give
answers to the questions.
Captured by Moewe.
The narrator is Willet G. Smith Of
South Norwalk, Conn. who reached
this country on November G from Swe-
den, to which land he escaped from
Lubbock, Germany, by cOncealing him.
self in the hold of vessel and ex-
listing six days without food or wa
ter.
Smith had been prisoner. first
aboard the German raider Moewe, then
in camp at Duelmen, then ut Brandon
burg and finally Mt Lubbock, for seven
months and one day. He fled on Octo-
Der IL.
Summed up, his testimony Is this:
There is no particular brutality. no
clubbing with guns or stabbing with
bayonets as long rs prisoners remain
orderly. But the food is insufficient
he fell away from 21O to 100 pounds
and long continued subsistence upon
German prison fare alone has most
grievous effects upon the health.
Only the Red Cross and Y. M. C. A.
supplies are keeping the prisoners
alive at some confinement places.
Brandenburg where about 10000
prisoners of allied nations were kept,
was the worst camp Smith encounter
ell. This is in Prussia. not far from
Berlin. Duelmen, In Westphalia. was
bad enough, although the treatment
was better. At Lubbock, which Is not
a camp but a port where prisoners
are worked on the waterfront. condi-
tons were not bad ut oil.
! Guards Worse OF.
The German soldiers guarding the
prisoners were far worse Off there than
the captives, Smith declares. Re-
lief organizations keep the prisoners
supplied with enough food and clothes
to get along with, and the mlddle-aged
guards. half starving and in patches,
beg supplies from their captive enc.
mics.
"They're sick and disguised with
the war, these fellows at Lubbock"
Smith says. "They would often say:
Look at us, without enough to eat
or wear The kaiser's no earthly
goodl He's crazy. Germany's starv-
ing and licked and yet he keeps on
fightingr
Smith, railroad brakeman by
trade and Boomer by inclination,
sailed from Newport News on January
% for Liverpool as foreman Of 81
American horse-wranglers. When his
ship, the British-owned steamer Es-
meralda, was on her return voyage In
March she was captured, robbed and
sunk by the raider Moewe, and her
crew added to the prisoners Of that ad-
vcnturous craft, who numbered at the
end of the MOewe's raiding voyage
above GOO.
How the prisoners were shut be-