Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1918-04-26
Continued from Last Issue)
The Panic-Stricken Refugees

The PanIc-Strlcken Refugees
Ali the next day the panlc-sUrlcken
people continued to pour into the city
from LouValn, with their tales or
I"hOrror. The mind was stunned; the
event was too enormous to be grasp
ed it seemed to have the inevitable
and fataliStic quality of some great
catastrophe in nature; it had hap
pened, that was all; it was not to be
escaped, it was there before one, in
the world. like an earthquake or
confagration or tornado, all of
which in it's effect it so much resem-
bled. Those who came told theiI
stories calmly, sitting there with
blank impressive faces; only in the
eyes that mad looked on those hOr-
rors the terror of it all was still re-
fiected. One was struck by their
lack of rancor; they seemed to have
suffered too deeply for that.
Indeed, all through that exper-
fence, then and afterwards, l. was
struck by the lack of passion dis
played by all those who had so terri
bly, suffered. | seldom heard any of
them express hatred of the Germans
or any desire for revenge. They
never even spoke of them as
"Bosches' and were by no means in
such fury of rage and desire for
revenge as | have observed in per-
sons safe in luxurious drawing room
thousands of miles away. None of
them, so far as / could observe or
learn, even acted in the tragic man
ner; there were no heroiCs and no
histriOniCs; they did not demean
themselves as do people in the cine
ma or in the romanticistic novels.
have read somewhere psychological
explanation of this phenomenon by
the late Professor William James,
who observed it and made interest
ing notes of it at the time of the San
Francisco earthquake. In moments
of great danger, of great strain and
tragedy, people are simple and nat
ural; they do not act in the theatre
cal sense of the word.
It was thus with the young
woman who. on that Tuesday, about
s O'Clock in the evening, when
the German soldiers suddenly beat
on the door of her home in Louvain,
and her father and brother ran to
open it, heard shots and had not
seen her father or brother since.
SnG LOOK 0oT OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES bdDs
in her arms and climbing the garden
wall, found refuge in the home of
friend for night and a day. while
on all sides the houses were in
flames and finally. carrying her
child, she lodged from street to
street, holding up one arm and wav-
ing a white handkerchief, and so
reached the village of Loefdael, and
and from there, Tervueren and last,
Brussels.
1t was so with the widow of six
ty; German soldiers at > o'clock
on Wednesday morning turned her
and her niece. a young woman about
to become a mother. out of her
house and drove them from place
TO place, half clad-the guardhouse
at ST. Martins barracks, the Place
du Pueple. the Hotel de Vile, and
finally to the infantry barracks, rue
de Tirlemont They we're forced
every now and then to kneel on the
ground and to raise their arms above
their heads, while the Germans
pressed the muzzles of guns against
their breasts or kicked them or
struck them; then, holding them as
prisoners in the barracks until
Thursday. allowed them to return
home to find their house burned
to the ground and all that the
widow had in the world-shares Of
the value of $4,000 francs contain
ed in an iron box in a valise; her
jewelry and diamonds in a little
hand satchel, which she had buried
in the garden-gOne.
1t was so with young Louvain
priest | knew, one of the group in
that tragic scene there in the square
before the railway station. He had
been seized with others, made to
march in front of the troops, kick
ed and cuffed, and spat upon,
struck with the butts of guns; his
hands were tied behind him with
barbed wire and there at the Place
de la Station he was forced to re-
main standing, not even allowed to
lean against the wall; and this for
hours, with repeated insults and
personal outrage, while his towns
men, one by one we're led out and
shot, there at the side of the square,
near the house of Mr.. Hemaide."
The Old Priests Tale
ulSuI ~ Ou
counting experiences such as these;
they would fill volume. But of ali
those | heard, of all those that were
written out for me, there is one that
remains more vivid in my memory
than all the rest. There was another
priest, an old white-haired ecclesias-
tic. a scholar and an educator, whom
one addressed as monseigneur. He
was one of those priests whose liber
alton | had secured on Thursday
night, and in the morning he came
with two others to thank me. He had
left Louvain when the exodus was
ordered on Thursday; he had gone
to Tervueren with other priests;
there he had witnessed the murder
of Father DupierreuX, he had been
put into a filthy cart, as a hostage,
n