Unreliable Complaints
“There has been some trouble with correspondence,” we read (Times, l.c.). The Commandant of one camp, while censoring a prisoner’s correspondence, came across a statement that “he slept on a plank bed with a verminous mattress... the prisoner admitted that he had written a false statement in order to induce his friends to send him more luxuries.” I am reminded of a report from Zossen mentioned by the Swiss Red Cross delegate. I quote from the abstract in the Basler Nachrichten: “It appears that there is much correspondence with sympathetic ink at Zossen. A great deal of iodine, starch and condensed milk are sent to the prisoners by their friends. These materials serve for the preparation of such inks.” We have heard of the use of sympathetic ink in this country. Experience suggests that complaints made by these methods are not to be relied on. The man who likes to tell a tall story is not very infrequent, either amongst civilians or soldiers, and if he can gain notoriety or advantage thereby, the temptation is considerable. Let these be obtained at the expense of the enemy, and the temptation is greater still. Some German girls were being taken back to Germany. An officer asked a girl what kind of a time she had in England. “Oh, dreadful,” she replied at first. It was the way to gain kudos. But generosity came to her rescue, she repented and corrected herself: “No, perfectly lovely,” she said, “everyone was good to us.”12 There are many on both sides who would not repent, but would make capital out of their interlocutor’s ignorance.