[From Time Stood Still by Paul Cohen-Portheim]

I. STRATFORD, LONDON E., AND A JOURNEY

There were all sorts and conditions of men, old and young, shabby and well-dressed-mostly shabby, however. They walked about, shuffled about, sat hunched in corners. Most of them seemed unknown to each other and eyed each other suspiciously, a few stood in groups and conversed in low tones. Nothing happened. Hours passed. More men entered the courtyard. I had seen pictures of just such scenes in the ' papers, they were called :' More enemy aliens surrendering peacefully.' So this was peaceful surrender - but what was the next step ? I thought I knew, for I had asked the detective who had called on me, where ' I was likely to be sent, and he had replied : 'Stratford, ' I expect.' Segregated at Stratford, and not allowed to leave Shakespeare's home town, as the Americans in force there call it, till peace came along.Well, there were worse places, and there would now be no tourists. Perhaps it was a delicate attention to send the Germans there, as they had always professed so great an admiration for Shakespeare. They went on acting his plays in wartime, while in England they had banned Bach and Wagner - how incredibly silly it all was - but in Germany Italian music had vanished for the same reasons. My thoughts drifted to opera, at least I could go on with my work-could I though ! I had forgotten where I was and that I had surrendered peacefully. But the whole thing was preposterous, it would probably last a few days only, and then the matter would have been cleared up by my friends and the government convinced that costume-designing for Carmen was of no danger to the realm.

[26]One of a group of three rnen standing next to me addressed me in rather halting German.Would I care to share a taxi with them ? They had been allowed to use a taxi, as a special favour. Of course a policeman ' was coming with them. I stared. A taxi, where to ? To Stratford, I was told, and learned that our destination was not the Avon but the East End. It was a sad drive. I had been able to picture existence in the Stratford I knew, but what could it be like in that of the East End ? It was nearly evening, we were hungry and had little to say to each other. All three men were in the City, I learned, two were elderly, all three had lived in England for a great many years. Chance acquaintances, if there ever were any ; I little thought I should spend years in their company, but human nature is strange, and these first casually met strangers had already ceased to be the complete strangers all the others were. One had a feeling of - very feeble - mutual support, one did not feel utterly alone, and thus were formed groups of often quite incongruous individuals which became permanent.

The taxi stopped in a narrow, dirty lane. Gates again, another courtyard, a factory. No more police ; soldiers and officers instead. The luggage was sorted out, soldiers started examining it. My sketch-books amused them immensely. ` This will do me very nicely,' said one of them. I never saw my books again. An officer stood by watching the scene indifferently. Someone handed me a metal disc which bore a number, and said : 'Give it up at the second camp,' after which I entered the building as I had seen the others do before me. I was faced by a very large glass-roofed hall, with a good deal of its glass broken.[27] The floor was tightly packed with beds or rather paillasses lying on a kind of bedstead ; there were crowds of men - I had not yet got used to calling them prisoners - standing about, sitting, or lying fully dressed on these couches. They seemed a vast multitude, and numbered, as I learnt later, about one thousand. This, I thought, was the first camp, and it was worse than anything I had imagined, but I was going on to the second where I was to give up my number. There was an exit at the far end of the hall which would no doubt lead to it. But it only led into a triangular courtyard surrounded by walls. A train was passing by on a viaduct, there was a nasty smell, due, I believe, to a chemical works near by, there were more men, but there was no second camp.

I had made a mistake as I discovered: my second camp would be the big internment camp in the Isle of Man where we were to be sent on the following morning. Stratford was being used as a clearing station, though the majority of the men were there permanently. I felt both relieved and terrified ; relieved because I felt I should have gone mad in those surroundings, terrified because I was being taken far away from my friends who, I still believed, would manage to set me free in a day or two-and that would surely be more difficult once I had been removed without being able to communicate with them. We got some sort of soup with bits of meat swimming about in it, served in metal pots, after which we were assembled in the courtyard and officially informed that we were leaving for the Isle of Man at 6 a.m. It must have been about 8 p.m. then ; what was one to do with oneself? I had been given a couch, my bags were lying on it, why not unpack? But where did one's things go-I asked a bundle of rags lying on the next couch-much to his amusement. There was nowhere, he grinned, you just took out what you needed; personally he had long given up changing for the night, or the day either. ' If you leave anything lying about, it won't be there long,' he added with a wink. I half undressed, lay down in utter misery. I felt so helpless was one really never to undress or wash or unpack; was one to sit or lie on a sack, or walk round a courtyard and be counted, and have verminous neighbours who would steal one's things lying next to one, and a broken glass roof (the Zeppelins had done that, said my neighbour) over one's head, and could one possibly live under such circumstances? The lights went out at ten, only a few but very bright lamps burned on; the air was thick, people were already beginning to snore, sleep seemed impossible. But no doubt the second camp would be better, it could certainly be no worse-but couldn't it? If this was possible, if this was ' internment or segregation for their own protection,' anything was possible. Perhaps they would have dungeons there or cells. It was revolting, it was inhuman. If Germans and Austrians were considered a danger - dropping that cant about, wishing to protect them - one could send them to some out-of-the-way district, to an island even, but what possible excuse had one for treating them in this manner, worse than criminals really. I was furious, and then I had to laugh at a funny sight. A man walked past quickly, holding together his scanty garments with one hand, the other raised to the sky. A few more followed. That was what you had to do if you wished to visit the lavatory. It was like early schooldays, it was too idiotic. I thought of the men who had been in the taxi with me, middle-aged stockbrokers or something of intense respectability, waving their arms in the air if they wished to ... Even this life had its funny side evidently, so why despair? And perhaps after all one would be free to roam about in the Isle of Man, and it was supposed to be a lovely place. It could not be for long, anyway. I had seen the Isle in the distance once when I crossed to Ireland; I felt very seasick then, I felt rather seasick now, but one must not give way-I wondered if there was a special signal for that emergency as well! Perhaps part of the punishment in the Isle of Man was having Hall Caine read aloud to one. Ghosts with outstretched arms continued to flit by ; perhaps they went there just for a change. I felt sleepy ; I felt for my watch, it was still there, and it was past midnight. How ghastly it all was - but more absurd yet than ghastly.

I felt almost cheerful while washing, as far as possible, next morning. That place, at any rate, was done with It was a cruel place and it was still more ridiculous. That first impression of prison life has never left me ; to me its dominant note has remained its incredible absurdity, its utter senselessness, the thoughtlessness to which its cruelty was due - in short the lack of imagination it revealed. The journey to the Isle of Man was to furnish a good many examples. Its beginning was terrible. We were marched through the streets to the station, flanked by soldiers with drawn bayonets. The population must have known this was due, for in spite of the early hour the streets were full of a hostile crowd. The memory of a recent Zeppelin raid was fresh with them; this must have appeared to them as a sort of revenge. They spat, they insulted, they jeered, they threw things. I had been so utterly unprepared for this that I could hardly believe it was happening. Perhaps it was happening to somebody else, or was it a nightmare? Only one face stood out from the crowd, horribly real, that of an old woman with wild wisps of white hair blowing about it. She grimaced furiously and shouted ' 'Uns ! ', then she grinned and nodded and said in a lower tone and with a curious sort of satisfaction, as if to herself: ' Biby-killers ! ' Then again the furious ' 'Uns,' the smug ' Biby-killers ! ' Her voice seemed to follow me all the way. She was quite drunk. I don't know what the actual distance to the station may have been, it seemed many miles to me.

I was prepared for a transport in cattle-trucks - a train composed of very comfortable corridor-carriages drew up, with plenty of room for everyone, and a very good lunch served by quite civilian and civil waiters (there is a connection between these adjectives). Man is a strange and illogical animal at any time, but this quick change was enough to make one feel slightly hysterical. People became vociferously cheerful: this was really an excellent joke, a holiday excursion - much better run than most excursions - at the expense of the British Government ! It would be followed by a stay at the seaside, board and lodging free. Not much to grumble at, what? Families, ruined businesses, all worries were forgotten for the time being. This was a school treat, for the great secret of masculine psychology is that all men of all ages act and behave like re-become schoolboys as soon as their individualities are merged in a crowd. It was a pleasant journey. The train glided slowly through undulating green country. I had not seen the country for nine months; it looked serene and peaceful and undisturbed by war from the carriage-window. We avoided towns, we stopped at no stations, but sometimes for hours on some siding. We reached the sea in the afternoon and the train drew up beside a steamer.

A change once more. On board the steamer we had suddenly become too dangerous to be allowed to remain on deck. We were hurdled and locked away somewhere below, there was no air, semi-obscurity reigned, and one had to stand. Fortunately the sea was calm. My three friends and I were very glad to be able to reunite, we felt quite old chums by this time. With hardly an interest in common we remained together for years after that day. I had already learned my first lesson, the impossibility of a separate and individual existence under these new circumstances. I had lost not only freedom but all possibility of privacy and of individual action. And I consider that the loss of freedom is the more bearable.

The sun was setting when we disembarked, and the scene was full of beauty. A curved bay with softly rounded hills rising all around it in the dusk; soft, warm air; a slight drizzle. A little, friendly looking town. If only one could have taken one's leave, said politely 'Hope we'll meet again some time,' and gone off to the nearest inn ! But instead of that we were again ' formed in fours,' flanked by khaki figures, marched away. Not at once, though; we waited for hours, God knows why; it had become quite dark. But up on the hill there were what seemed to eyes used to the blackness of war time London myriads of dazzling lights. They looked extremely cheerful, and they reminded me of Magic City and Paris. 'Nothing will happen,' my friend had said - he who was in the know. But a good deal had happened since that night; this Magic City was Knockaloe Internment Camp and I was not a human being called by a name but an interned civilian numbered nineteen thousand and something, as shown by a metal disc to be delivered 'in the second camp.' We were marching through the town, the inhabitants, thank God, showing no interest whatever in what had long become a daily sight to them. I don't know what they looked like, it was too dark to see them, and during my whole stay in the Isle of Man I never saw the face of a Manxman or Manxwoman, nor even of a cat-tailless or tailed. Some of the men began to sing, which is, I suppose, unavoidable when people are marching: the soldierly spirit. But their choice irritated me, they sang: Muss I' denn, muss I' denn zum Städle hinaus, Städle hinaus, und Du mein Schatz bleibst hier, an old German Lied of soldiers leaving their town and their sweethearts in order to march to battle and heroic deeds, at least to manoeuvres - really a most inappropriate choice for that occasion. Number nineteen thousand and something asserted his individual freedom by not joining in the singing. The chains of light came nearer and nearer, the mirage faded. Barbed wire appeared, long, endlessly long stretches of barbed wire, five or six yards high. And faces and faces behind the wire, thousands of caged animals. They called out to us, and as in a nightmare they repeated the cries of the East End crowd: 'Huns! Baby-killers! Have they caught you at last ! ' This was not meant unkindly, but the form of humour peculiar to prisoners was as yet unknown to me, also I was very, very weary. At last a gate opened in the barbed wire wall, we entered, one's feet sank deep into slippery clay. In front of us lay on the left free space, on the right tightly-clustered wooden huts, the whole surrounded by tall barbed wire and arc-lamps This was called a compound; it held one thousand human animals. Five compounds formed a camp, and this was Camp II. There were five camps altogether, I believe. The gate closed behind us. This, then, was 'the second camp', the disc had been delivered, there was nothing more to be done but wait for liberation - which already seemed much, much farther than twenty-four hours ago in Stratford - or else for the end of the Great War.

Discussion

Cohen is somewhat coy with respect to dates which makes dating his transfer to Knockaloe difficult. His PoWIB number, of which he would have no knowledge, was 39984 as found in list D-46-18 where his age was given as 36 with a home address of Prager Pl 1, Berlin; this record, dated 31 July 1915, places him at Knockaloe though his transfer was likely to have been several weeks earlier. The period following the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915 shows a major change in the internment process - by June 1915 Knockaloe was receiving upto 2000 internees a week - other camps, besides recording thousands of internees for the first time, were also noting hundreds of re-internments as the releases from late 1914 under Kitchener's relaxation of internment were undone. Other internees with PoWIB numbers within ±200 of Cohen's are noted as having transferred to Knockaloe on the 22nd June (recorded as 23 June at Knockaloe) which suggests my transfers D7 or D8 and thus either the the Duke of Clarence from Fleetwood on the 20th or the Manxman from Heysham on 23rd June both of which ports would be small and had direct transfer from the train to the boat. However his account of having been given camp number 19 thousand and something is totally incompatible with entry into Camp II - a camp number in the 9000s would fit with placement in compound 3 or 4 of camp II with arrival on the 23rd June - these compounds were being filled as soon as, and at times before, the hut spaces or facilities such as wash houses were fully ready. It is possible that there was some temporary overcrowding of other compounds with subsequent re-assignment but such are seldom noted in the surviving records. This would agree with his comment that he could communicate with the two adjoining compounds by shouting across the barbed wire as well as the later appearance of chairs and roofs on wash houses etc.

His departure is also not explicitly confirmed in the surviving records, the Knockaloe arrival/departure register shows a departure of 61 from camp II on 17th August 1915 but no destination is given - there appears to be no surviving register for Wakefield but as camp numbers in all internment camps were allocated in sequential order the ICRC lists indicate an arrival into Wakefield of around 60 internees on this date who would have camp numbers in the 1900s - Cohen himself quotes on p198 of Time Stood Still his camp number as 1972 which would fit well - unlike the list of transfers out of Wakefield to Sleaford which were ordered alphabetically, those involving transfers from Knockaloe were always in camp number order and Cohen having only been in Knockaloe a few weeks prior to transfer would have a camp number towards the end of any such list. His next and final appearance in the official records can be found in the list of those transferred to Holland on the 3rd March 1918 from Sleaford Camp where he was given camp number 591 - others in this party are noted as having left Wakefield on the 28th February 1918.

He was mistaken in the number of camps - there were to be four such camps though at the time of his transfer Camp III would still be in course of construction; Camp IV would follow by late summer - not all camps had 5 compounds - Camp IV would have 7.

What is interesting is that Stratford issued what reads like the identity tally disks used at Knockaloe - Knockaloe would have no prior knowledge of the name of the internee given this tally number nor would the PoWIB who would allocate their central reference number once in receipt of the camp lists returned by Knockaloe.

Any comments, errors or omissions gratefully received The Editor HTML© F Coakley , 2021