Whiling away World War One in an enemy internment camp
Last updated 21:35, Sunday, 20 April 2008
Newspaper accounts give some indication of the harsh treatment of British prisoners of war in Germany during World War One but there are also good descriptions of internment camps for civilians.
Two Carlisle men were unfortunate enough to be in Germany when war was declared and were interned for the duration.
Their experiences were given in the Carlisle Journal on their return in November and December 1918.
Both were in Ruhleben Camp, which was a racecourse on the outskirts of Berlin, at Spandau.
One prisoner was Sidney Dodgshon, of Rosebery Road, Stanwix, who had worked for Messrs Cowans, Sheldon and Co for 10 years and “then followed his bent for a seafaring life”.
He was in Hamburg when the war broke out and was at first imprisoned with the rest of the crew of the SS Sangara on a prison hulk.
The other prisoner was H B Molyneux, who worked at Hudson Scott and Sons in Carlisle, and was in Hanover on business when hostilities started.
Molyneux was at first under house arrest in his hotel but made a break for freedom with a train-load of Americans.
He was discovered at the border and sent back.
On the 14-hour journey to Ruhleben Camp, Dodgshon said they were “without a bite to eat or a drop to drink”.
The first few nights in the stables, he said, were spent “on the cement floors, six men having the accommodation provided for a single horse”.
Eventually they were allowed blankets and straw sacks, but said Dodgshon, this was only because the prisoners “kicked up a good deal of trouble about our treatment at first and any improvement which was effected was due to our own efforts”.
“In the early days,” added Dodgshon, “there were over 4,000 in the camp, but with exchanges and departures and men going sick, the number dwindled down to about 2,890.”
Whether Dodgshon ever met Molyneux, or anyone else from Carlisle, was not in either account.
Camp food was very basic. “All we got was a slice of bread and a cup of coffee about nine in the morning and at dinner time we had a serving of thin pea and turnip soup,” said Dodgshon and as matters got worse he had no alternative but going around “hunting for crusts or starve”.
The soup supplied was such that, “hungry as we were, most of us threw it away”, said Dodgshon,
But when food parcels began to arrive from England, conditions improved and with an allowance of between five and 10 shillings per man per week sent from the British Government, through neutral embassies, “the German guards could always be bribed to get anything for us that we needed”.
Molyneux said newspapers were absolutely forbidden, especially English ones, but men would pool their allowances and “our guards were bribed to bring these papers in from Berlin”.
At first they were kept under military administration but for the last two years of the war Ruhleben was placed under the civil authorities and life became more tolerable for prisoners.
Molyneux said: “One thing I can say in its favour, I never saw definite physical ill-treatment.”
Being an artist, Molyneux said: “I was particularly fortunate in having a good light, the electricity soldier fitting it up for a tin of English tobacco and 10 marks, without the knowledge of the authorities.”
He used this light for three years while he worked on illustrating the Ruhleben Camp Magazine as art editor.
“The censors were always kind,” said Molyneux, “and gave us as many privileges as lay in their power.”
There was also a Ruhleben Dramatic Society. Dodgshon said: “Actors in both male and female parts being so well made up in wig, face, figure and dress that no-one would imagine that the women’s parts were taken by men.”
A select few prisoners were given “special privilege to go into the city as buyers”, said Sidney Dodgshon, and came back with costumes and wigs.
What is more surprising is that the Journal said that Mr Dodgshon had a large collection of photographs taken in the camp.
Release came soon after the Armistice. This was in November and Dodgshon said: “The carriage of the train for our homeward journey, of five windows not one had a single pane and there was neither heating or light.”
Writing a month later he said: “I have not got over the cold yet.”
Molyneux must have been on the same train, which took the prisoners to Sassnitz on the Baltic “where the most wonderful kind Danish Red Cross met us with two boats and so via Copenhagen to England – eight days travelling”.
