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The Prisoners

Raemaekers, Louis, 1916, Chromolithograph
The Prisoners
The Prisoners
The Prisoners
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Category
Library Item
Item no
32983
Title
The Prisoners
Description
"The controversies between the warring nations over the treatment of the interned prisoners, in each country, would fill a small library. The Allies prisoners' treatment in Germany varied in the most marked degree, ranging from harsh brutality and semi-starvation, especially in the early months, to the most thoughtful kindness. The French Government secured better diet and conditions for the French prisoners by retaliating and adopting the German regime. Our quotations show both the tragic and the brighter side of these charges and counter-charges which added a perceptible dose to the poison phial of international hatreds.

'Amsterdam: Major Priestley and Captain Vidal, of the Royal Army Medical Corps, who had been prisoners in Germany since the last days of August 1914, arrived here on Sunday evening. Both officers in February 1915 were sent to Wittenberg to aid in combating an outbreak of typhus. At that time there were, roughly, 10,000 Russians, 3,000 French, and 900 British in camp there. The cases of typhus at one time numbered of 1,000. Among the British there were some 150 cases, of which sixty were fatal. Of the six British Army medical officers sent to Wittenberg four contracted typhus. Three of these died. Both the officers, who do not wish to make any statements about the past conditions of the camps, describe the present conditions as being good. There was now no disease among the 300 British who are at present in the camp. The old unhappy days in the Wittenberg camp, they say, appear to have departed. - Daily News, February 1916.'"
Artist / maker
Date
1916
Size
34.6 x 27.6 cm
Location
Art and Design Library
Copyright
Louis Raemaekaers' drawings are reproduced by kind permission of the Louis Raemaekers Foundation.