Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-09-13
PRISONER WRITES
OF GERMAN CAMP
Thrilling Story Told BY Escaped
Jewish Russian Student Who
Describes Conditions
is NOW IN DENMARK

]
The Committee on Public Informa-
ton of the Foreign Information Ser
vice. sent cut the following story Of
life in a German prison camp was
furnished US by the Copenhagen cor
respondent of the Jewish Daily War
heit The author is 4 Jewish Rus
sian student. who lived through the
conditions which he describes lie
is al present in Denmark
For three and one-haf years
was a prisoner IN . German prison
camp. At the end 90 that time !
was fortunate enough 10 escape A.
though I am a Russian. TIE peace uf
Brest-Litovsk did not give ne ms
( freedom Like the eneniY satiects
Who were In the same camp. haa
70 wait ms chance 90 make q rNrfinas
dash for liberty
Although much has alreads heen
written In TIE press 90 aii eoanfFiss
about thc trpatmenf of waf rrisunefs
in Germany. nexerthe 7 heliffN
that I have bad experience Whleh
are. % 4 certain extent. uufQus anl
worth reiating. rhs camp In ehieh
I was confined q Camp HuiEminden
on the Weser. Al the place a Kreat
number % civilians Who have I'm 40
way participated tn the var are IBID
captive u is not a camp for military
prisoners. IL is a camp Cor enemy
civilians.
"The regime al Holxminden was
fairly mild until the beginning OF
1917 But when General Haehnisch.
barbarous old despot. was named
general of the 10th Army Corps, to
which district Holzminden belongs.
the camp conditions were utterly
changed at once In the place of the
former commanding officer, General
Pfiugradt, who had treated the pris-
oners with decency and certain
amount of consideration, Colonel Gal
lus was appointed, a half crazy in
dividual, with years of experience as
prison director. With the help of
a group of his underlings, more ruth
less than himself. the Colonel very
soon succeeded in establishing a Ger
man prison regime at Holzminden
Heaviest Work Required
This regime involved forcing the
prisoners to do the heaviest sort of
labor. Every day they were required
to break up and haul stone, build
roads, and work in the fields. The
road building was at a distance of
from five to six kilometers from the
camp. Work in the factories of Holz-
minden was also looked upon as a
camp duty. Because of the fact that
the prisoners were for the most part
students, engineers, merchants, and
so on, who were unused to physical
labor of this sort, the tasks were par
ticularly onerous. Furthermore, the
guards were instructed to keep nag
ging at the prisoners constantly, to
make them work faster
"The manner Of these guards is
quite indescribable. They received
from the Colonel himself orders Of
the most outrageous sort. To speed
the work of the prisoners, they were
told to strike them with their fists
and with clubs. At the most trivial
offense they were instructed to shoot
If a guard was so rash as to be
| friendly with one of the captives, he
was severely punished. To make the
guards more Jealous in their work,
Colonel Gallus informed them that all
80 Io ~ tVao M InI
minden were pirates and criminals,
deserving of the most violent treat
ment The result is inevitable. There
/ were almost daily cases of physical
mistreatment while / was a Holzmin-
den. Some of the poor fellows were
so badly handled that they had to
I be taken to the hospital.
A Dreary Day
The days program was dreary
one. At 4:30 we were awakened;
! that is, at 4:3O by German summer
/ time, which is in reality at $3.50. At
| we went to work often we could
not return to the barracks at noon
because we were working in a place
several kilometers from the camp,
and We were obliged to remain out
of-doors in the wet and the rain until
1880 in the evening. At 8 p. M, when
it was still light, we were locked up
in the barracks. We had not suffi-
cient time for sleep, rest. or even for
meals.
I'm spite of the constant activity
demanded of the. prisoners, the food
was poor and contained little nour-
ishment. We did have sort of COM
missary committee, composed of three
prisoners. But if it for single time
ventured to complain of the soup as
unsatisfactory the most disagree
able things always happened Mail
was frennentlv held I'm hv way of re-