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THE STARS AND STRIPEStmOdd French City Of WomenGcNlt;Now Jus! Ghost CommunityLAirthftiCoeBy Sfi. STAN 9Staff CorrespondentVITTEL, France—The City of Women Is a ghost town now. Twisted barbed wire still wallsits boundaries but the green uniformed Germans have disappeared from their sentry boxes. And the 358 U. S. expatriates snaked by the Gestapo and imprisoned at the Vittel Internment Camp are homeward boundIt was in seven luxury hotels of this famed mineral water spa that the Nazis maintained one of their strangest prisons. Two thousand and 80 internees from 31 nations—two-thirds of them women—-spent long years of isolation here, enduring semi-starvation and endless boredom.They came from many lands—the United States, China, the U.S.S.R., San Salvadore, Iran, Nicaragua, Iraq, even Liberia. Despite their diverse origin the internees’ histories have a peculiar similarity. Ties with home had + been severed years before andbill1trolweeOff3Tec . MperlugForary,TecranHtin*theFrance was their adopted land. When opportunities arose to return to their own countries beforethe Germans poured In, the expatriates refused them to stay with French wives and husbands or to remain near businesses and homes.Some had claims to fame—their number included Ntrs. Janina Math-eson, Gary Cooper’s first wife, Madame de Maublune, sister of cosmetician Elizabeth Arden; William Burgess, who once swam the English Channel; the sister of boxer Benny Leonard, and Mrs. Paul Re-naud, wife of the French politician. Others were unknown businessmen and social workers.The story of the Vittel Internment Camp begins on Dec. 6, 1940, when the first group was transferred from imprisonment elsewhere.It seemed a heaven at first,” a British woman, whose name was withheld for security reasons, recalled. We had come from a terrible place where we lived in Army barracks and it was always damp and cold. There we had no beds, no hot water, nothing:TAKE ME BACK TO NEW YORKMEAT ON SUNDAYBut hunger and lack or heat soon dispelled illusions of the life internees would live in the rich luxury hotel setting. There was but one meal a day. The great event was Sunday, when a tiny slice of roast meat and potato was provided. Monday there was barley boiled in water and a piece of cheese. Tuesday meant a few watery vegetables and a tiny pinch of butter. Wednesday brought mixed vegetables—cabbage and carrots— and the week’s sugar ration. Thursday there was vegetable stew and a bit of jam. Friday meant stew (the Internees called it Cats’ Meat Stew”) and boiled cabbage. Saturday vegetable soup reappeared.Those scant meals were all the Germans provided. Without Red Cross parcels the internees believe they would have starved.If the people at home only could realize how great is our gratitude, an internee declared. ’That one parcel a week saved us.The weekly parcel contained a meat roll, corned beef, sardines, tinned butter, coffee or tea, sugar, jam, chocolate, soap, salt and pepper; a packet of raisins and cigarettes. Rationed into daily portions, it supplemented the official diet.Boredom was the most fearful problem in the internees’ lives. Desperately they sought to keep them-ieselves occupied. There were orchestras for both men and women. Concerts were held. Language classes occupied some.Plays were shown after being carefully scanned by Nazi censors before presentation. International socialites busied themselves with housekeeping Just for something to do.The German commandant permitted internees to be virtually self-governing. Three men—a physician, a Canadian who served as a lieutenant in the last war. and a former captain—served as the governing body. A Liberation Bureau, staffed by internees, handled administrative work and won release for prisoners over 60. Couples lucky enough to be together at the camp were permitted to live as man and wife.THERE WERE TRAITORSLife, on the whole, was uneventful but in a women’s world there was bound to be jealousy and some friction. Several hair-pulling matches forced roommates to beswitched. One or two girls consortedwith German guards.”It was a most horrible thing, a fellow internee said. ”We shunned them.”Inevitably there were traitors who reported to the Gestapo.One silly hysterical British woman of 47 fled the night the Germans lift,” a fellow countryman reported. She was a gaunt, bony-faced creature we had suspected of spying.”There was an American traitor,* k .**.\4 * '•' V • •- vv. V. ■ ;•\V S'X •» I v . » •,v.« ♦ ►; 4.k' ww-voa;- r^y.v.yv nvv. v *v: ♦: '• ’ ^ »-.• ' v ■ 4 y*s¥v*::;-,SSAvv»\y- -Xsvr.’.v.v ■*;: % . .....• vV.V i’-’ .'‘Vl • V V -%* • r*’- * .«•'••• • - ' ■Y*..* -.V/.V \ V» 1 *.».V. vN* • ■ » ' » •* • • • «»*. «v infln • • 4 vTlStatGovtalk,thehereTlthatsianrighthatraisthat be :They wish they were in New York, but they aren’t. What these GIs in Paris are viewing is a replica of the Statue of Liberty, standing in the Seine River, modeled after the original which flashes its freedom beacon in New York harbor.TjectforlastsaidSaeexp!wasH 1. •Per..sideun ditt 3, tlleft replt; tiv c unt T G01 afflt; anctoo—a girl of 30 who escaped the night American troops entered Vittel and went back to the Gestapo. But on the whole internees ignored the enemy and carried on only official dealings with them.Despite their isolation, thewomen clung tenaciously to feminine ways. There was no face cream so they made it. melting down fat and beating in Eau du Cologne. A paste manufactured from powderedmilk salved complexions. A hairdresser won permission to enter camp.Even hatredscialismin this cut off world the inherent in National So-Intruded. Last April, the commandant curtly announced 165Jewish internees would be deported to Paris and thence to Germany for disposition.” Three chose suicide. Others attempted self-destruction unsuccessfully and were deported despite their wpunds. None of the Jews ever was heard from again.OLD MAID HEROINEtheirOne sharp-faced British spinster who spent most of her life in Tunisia and France was the heroine of that grim chapter. A Polish Jew, a corporal who was captured when Poland fell but escaped to France, hurried a desperate note to her when depoitation was imminent.Risking death, she Smuggled the boy into a bathroom connected to her room. For 16 weeks he hid under the Gestapo’s nose, sharing the British woman’s single weekly Red Cross parcel. Not once in those 16 weeks did they converse except by written messages and signs. On the other side of the thin walls were others who might disclose secret.News of Allied landings in mandy was received promptly forbidden radio concealed by a Canadian in the camp hospital. News bulletins'were typed and stealthily circulated. It was then that tension became almost unbearable.In August, dozens of Gestapo agents poured into Vittel from the north. That presaged the end. On Sept. 1, internees awoke to find the sentries had fled. There were shoutsof joy. Until Allied troops arrived, the camp committee assumed control and posted guards.Then, 12 days later, German fighting forces reappeared. U. S. in-fantrv and tanks battled them outside Vittel. Sixteen Germans deserted to the camp and surrendered. U. S. 3rd Army forces poured into town.Barely had the front moved on when Capt. Joseph J. Wall, Media,Penna., a G-5 officer, arrived to take over. The internment camp became the Vittel Displaced Persons Camp. Soldiers like T-5 Bernard Slaughter, Greenville, Ala., and Pfc. David Dick, Mankato, Minn., poured over the records. Diplomats appeared to smooth out citizenshiptangles. Intelligence agents questioned each internee.Now the camp is emptied. Three groups left for England, another for America. A fifth batch of men without countries will go to Palestine. Many internees refused to leave France, asking only to return to their foreign homes of many years. But for all the long years of internment are ended.Immediately after American forces liberated them, the internees received a practical demonstration of democracy at work which impressed them deeply. A Jewish religious service was announced. Everyone, Jew or Gentile, attended.”It showed us there is still a society where men think and believe as they wish,” the internees said.£on 35,( in Pt. Adi cor per 200 off! an lea He rep potKalinin Sees Red Army,Allied Link ForthcomingNor-on aMOSCOW, Nov. 2—Hailing the victories of the Red Army, Mikhail Kalinin, Soviet President, said today that the day is not far off when Allied and Soviet armies would meet on German territory.He forecast that Hungary would soon be lost to Germany.The Nazis hoped to cause dissension among the Allies, Mr. Kalinin added, but said that the Germans could be smashed in the political arena just as surely as on the battlefields.Bor MovedLONDON, Nov. 2—General Bor Komorowski, leader of the Warsaw uprising and now a prisoner in German hands, has been moved, with the members of his staff, to Of lag, near Nuremberg, the PolishTelegraph Agency said today.SAJb:1Cn;S’GEl010Caiblt;SA3MOlIPElCHiCt*ST.GJi01blt;ST.SI01mEST.MUST.C*UburST.cc.\t;aHEOS
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Rome Stars and Stripes
Roby, Missouri, US
Fri, Nov 03, 1944
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USA 20 Jun 2021
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