she said, ‘Of course I oughtn’t to speak to you, but I’m so hungry and I know
you have food in your camp. Could you—could you—for the love of God
and humanity, spare me a few biscuits? For my children they are starving, I
should be eternally grateful to you if you would help me’ The prisoner did
what he could leaving her dissolved in tears, and between these two extremes
lies the story of Ruhleben.
14.2.4 22 March 1915
Even though Robert Le Rossignol left us no record of his internment that we
can use in any individual biographical sense, there is little doubt that he
carried his memories with him to the end of his life.
43 All the evidence
suggests that internment was a deeply humiliating and frightening experience,
and those such as Robert would not have taken easily to it. These were
members of the comfortable middle classes, used to the finer aspects of life,
thoroughly integrated into elite German society, often with young families
and with no tendency towards any form of political-social disruption or
national subversion. Many like Robert who had married German women
with whom they had children were often deemed deutschfreundlich,
44 but
even so he fell through the coarse interment filter of the Reich and found
himself in Ruhleben’s horse boxes rubbing shoulders with ‘fishermen from
Hull and Grimsby, black sailors from Africa and the West Indies, Jewish
tailors and music hall artists from the east end of London, professional
football players and golfers, jockeys from the royal racecourse at Hoppegarten
and a host of criminals, conmen, drifters and thugs who happened to be in
Berlin or Hamburg when the war broke out’.
45 This bubbling ‘melting pot’
of humanity babbled a ‘kaleidoscope’ of languages; Afrikaans, Arabic, French,
Hebrew, Italian, Russian, Spanish and Yiddish. Some prisoners even spoke
Welsh, and alongside the linguistic cacophony, through the rigours of
Ruhleben camp in winter and just a few miles from his wife and children …
within the fouled horse boxes Robert must have renewed his acquaintance
with an ‘old friend’, ammonia. Ruhleben turned Roberts’s life ‘upside down’.
His internment coincided with the time when the camp was at its worst. He
was present before many of the reforms were enacted, when it was overcrowded and volatile, and during a cold, wet winter—the coldest ever
recorded in W. Europe. But suddenly, on the 22 March 1915, after four
months as a prisoner, he was released to Berlin ‘for the purpose of resuming
his former occupation.’
46 Although his release came just three weeks after
Ambassador Gerard’s first visit, it is Charlotte Haber’s memoirs
47 reported by
14 Robert’s War 1914–1918
287
you have food in your camp. Could you—could you—for the love of God
and humanity, spare me a few biscuits? For my children they are starving, I
should be eternally grateful to you if you would help me’ The prisoner did
what he could leaving her dissolved in tears, and between these two extremes
lies the story of Ruhleben.
14.2.4 22 March 1915
Even though Robert Le Rossignol left us no record of his internment that we
can use in any individual biographical sense, there is little doubt that he
carried his memories with him to the end of his life.
43 All the evidence
suggests that internment was a deeply humiliating and frightening experience,
and those such as Robert would not have taken easily to it. These were
members of the comfortable middle classes, used to the finer aspects of life,
thoroughly integrated into elite German society, often with young families
and with no tendency towards any form of political-social disruption or
national subversion. Many like Robert who had married German women
with whom they had children were often deemed deutschfreundlich,
44 but
even so he fell through the coarse interment filter of the Reich and found
himself in Ruhleben’s horse boxes rubbing shoulders with ‘fishermen from
Hull and Grimsby, black sailors from Africa and the West Indies, Jewish
tailors and music hall artists from the east end of London, professional
football players and golfers, jockeys from the royal racecourse at Hoppegarten
and a host of criminals, conmen, drifters and thugs who happened to be in
Berlin or Hamburg when the war broke out’.
45 This bubbling ‘melting pot’
of humanity babbled a ‘kaleidoscope’ of languages; Afrikaans, Arabic, French,
Hebrew, Italian, Russian, Spanish and Yiddish. Some prisoners even spoke
Welsh, and alongside the linguistic cacophony, through the rigours of
Ruhleben camp in winter and just a few miles from his wife and children …
within the fouled horse boxes Robert must have renewed his acquaintance
with an ‘old friend’, ammonia. Ruhleben turned Roberts’s life ‘upside down’.
His internment coincided with the time when the camp was at its worst. He
was present before many of the reforms were enacted, when it was overcrowded and volatile, and during a cold, wet winter—the coldest ever
recorded in W. Europe. But suddenly, on the 22 March 1915, after four
months as a prisoner, he was released to Berlin ‘for the purpose of resuming
his former occupation.’
46 Although his release came just three weeks after
Ambassador Gerard’s first visit, it is Charlotte Haber’s memoirs
47 reported by
14 Robert’s War 1914–1918
287