SECRET PRISONERS

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 64, 10 December 1918, Page 5

SECRET PRISONERS

—4 • CONCEALED IN GERMANY. The. French persistently affirm that there are secret prisoners in Germany, men whose families have lost all trace of them and suppose.them to be dead, but whom the Germans have concealed •for - some unfathonied and unavowable reason.' No doubt they have more reasons for what they' say than they have published. I myself know of one secret ■ prisoner, whose story I heard at Ruhleben. Long after the rest of us, there was brought into the camp a man obviously of some standing and . consideration, .whose manner was very dazed and depressed. By degrees, finding himself among friends,, he brightened a little and told some of us what had happened to him, and why it was that he had been brought to join us so late in the day. He was one of the men—and there were hundreds of them—who had been arrested just before, or just after, the outbreak of war, thrown into prison for no reason except' that they were "suspected," -and' kept in solitary confinement without the opportunity of communicating with thoir friends.. As a rule such men were released after a few days or a few weoks, though I have known a, few who were detained in those conditions for as long as two months. But this particular man was kept in detention much longer. The time seemed an eternity to him, and he was in despair. At last he took a desperate step, and tried to smuggle out. of tho prison a letter written'in .'invisible ink, describing his plight. The attempt was detected, as. of course, it was bound' to bo. The offence—luckily, as it happened, for offender—was one which the gaol governor considered too serious for him to deal with. He therefore reported the case to Berlin, and asked for instructions, and the reply which Berlin sent was nn astonishing one; "Who is this man? We had forgotten all .about him, and did not know that he was in your hands. Send him to Ruhleben, and wo, will go into tho case there." -So he came to Ruhleben, and so far as I know the story had no seqncl. But if that sort of thing lias happened to one man it may have happened to several; and it is quite clear that there will have to bo a very thorough investigation of all tho German prisons after the war in order that the truth may be sifted, justice done, and all those responsible for the oversights, whether these have been intentional or accidental, punished as they deserve.'—(Bv TVancis Gribble, in the "Daily Mail.")