Evening star., 1941-02-04
NoH Prison Camp in France
Described by D. C.. Resident
$1,000 Drank From
Five Tops, Declores
Young De Sieyes
BY JOHN M. BOWIE.


courtyard 300 yards square with only
five water taps to drink from was
described yesterday by Malcolm de
SieyeS, Washington resident, who
related his experiences in occupied
France Immediately following the
armiStice.
Mr.. de Sieyes is the 22-year-old
son of Jacque de Sieyes, a former
secretary of the French Embassy
and at present the Washington
representative of Gen. Charles de
Gaulle, leader of the Free French"
government, whom the elder de
Sieyes knew as a classmate at ST.
Cyr, the French West Point.
Leaving Dartmouth College just
before graduation last year. young
de SieyeS, as citizen of France,
was ordered to the 18th Battalion de
ChaSseur AlpinS-the French ski
troops. After a brief period of
training, he landed as a volunteer
in regiment covering the retreat
at the Loire.
We were supposed TO cover the
retreat" said Mr.. de Sieyes. Some
of the Germans had already gone
past and around behind us-their
Panzer' divisions. There was no
front. You just took pot shots at
the Germans if you could find them
among the refugees choking the
roads"
After nearly week of this the
regiment was forced to return south
to Beurley, their ammunition ex-
hauSted. Mr. de Sieyes recalled.
Captured by Germans.
Captured there by the Germans.
the French were moved north to
a prison camp near Saintes.
There was large wall around
the stone buildings in which the
soldiers had lived. To one side of
the enclosure was a large courtyard,
about 300 yards square, where we
were kept. 1t was unpaved, and
the heavy, choking dust stirred up
by the $4,000 of us in the courtyard
made the air nearly unbreathable.
Another thousand were in the
buildings
Mr.. de Sieyes said he will never
forget the week in that courtyard; :;
the $4,000 men who had only five
water taps and ten toilets To get
a drink of water, they had to stand
in line for two or three hours. Con-
ditions became worse: Mr.. de Sieyes
saw the French doctors constantly
complaining TO their captorS as
typhoid threatened and dysentery
broke out. Escapes were frequent.
and, according to Mr.. de Sieyes, the
Germans moved the prisoners as
often as possible 10 prevent them
from learning the ground and the
natives too well.
Mud Is Ankle Deep.
The young Frenchman described
the next camp, at Surgeres, as a
large field bounded on two sides by
a wall and on the others by a stag
nant stream. Submachine gunners
guarded the opposite bank. The
men made little tents with their
blankets and ponchos, those who
had either left, but the rain poured
down for seven days, and since the
field was on the side of a hill. the
mud botn inside and outside the
tents became ankle-deep.
You couldn't lie down and sleep
in that. We hardly slept at all for
four nights. Things got so bad that
they left most of us sleep in the vii
lage town hall and other buildings
the last night-with plenty of
guards of course"
Tyroleans and Frenchmen got
along, but the Prussians were an
other story.
They had stock answers for
everything, recalled Mr.. de Sieyes.
Hitler to them is divine and his
decisions unquestions BILE. They re-
peat their Nazi catechism like little
boys learning their lessons in school,
If you. contradict them or ask a
question, you just get one of those
answers back. Just press the but
ton and the machine starts up. The
whole mentality is discipline, dis
cipline, discipline. I saw a 25-year-
old officer call 40-year-old private
TO attention and apparently call
him the worst things you can call
a German. The man stood per-
fectly still Then the officer began
smacking him in the face, pulling
back his hand and letting go-I
don't Ernuf hnnt
man never moved a muscle
Germans Well Equipped.
The German soldier was well
equipped, perfectly trained, and
thoroughly tough. MI. de Sieyes
says. He was surprised that their
uniforms actually fitted. They had
plenty of all the best war machines
and apparently the gas and oil to
run them.
Il never saw German walk" he
said. When they went off sentry
duty, they didn't walk back to bar
racks. A motorcycle would come
flying around the corner and pick
him up. They drove like the devil.
in and out of the camp all day
and night.
Though they were big and tough
and hard enough for anybody,
can't understand how they got
that way on the food they had. In
the morning they got a sort of tea
made out of acorns or something
with crumbly, mealy bread. Their
only hot meal was at noon-a kind
of thin stew with little pieces of
meat about as big as your f1ngernail.
In the French army we got our
quart of wine every day, but for
the Germans anything alcoholic
is 'verboten.' For supper they had
the same bread with some margaine
or jam. l saw German in the
village one day buy a five pound
lump of butter and eat it like
candy"
Finally securing a Spanish transit
visa after his release and demobi-
liZatiOn Mr. de Sleeves returned tn