we don’t get bread, we get flour.” I asked if
they wanted me to be sorry for them because
they were obliged to cook their food, seeing
they had nothing to do all day, but to keep
themselves and their so-called prison clean,
and amuse themselves, and were occasionally
called upon to make bread. The night I happened
to go I saw their week's ration of meat.
They said that sometimes it was reindeer meat
and sometimes other meats. That which I
saw looked very good, and I am quite certain
that during no one of the four weeks I was in
Russia did I receive anything like that ration.
I also saw French and other soldier prisoners
all being treated in the same manner. I have
tried to find a new word for such prisons and
prisoners, for certain it is these men enjoyed
a better life than the Commissar in whose
charge they were placed. The prisoners shared
their extra food with him, thus proving his
need and their sufficiency. I can only call
them free prisoners.
For all this, it is not nice to be detained in a foreign land, and as most of these soldiers were very young, I can understand how sick and miserable they really were ; but my real sympathy was for those in prison, the officers and men the Government stupidly refused me permission to see.
I visited one prison where the correspondent of a London newspaper was detained.
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