BLACK HOLE OF COLOGNE.

Otaki Mail, Volume 26, 31 March 1919, Page 4

BLACK HOLE OF COLOGNE.

: To many of the British prisoners who returned from .Germany, Cologne is a place of iiotovi_uns*mp:nory. Thereis a room in the station Tit only by « sh-vii'dit on an inner staircase, which tliov"used to call “The Black Hole of Cologne. ” It is not-quite so diuigoonlike as that name implies, but when : crammeuid full with 70 wounded, 'bun- , died iu anyhow,' with its dim light, and \i w ventilation except where one prij soncr has broken a hole in the sky- ’ light, it must have been a place of in* - tense discomfort.' This the Germans aggravated by leaving the feverish men 1 seven hours without, "water, and when | one of the British officers beat on the ' door to attract attention a sentry opened it and struck him with the butt of his rifle. On the walls'of this little : modern Bastille are scrawled hundreds ' of names of prisoners, of all nationalities who passed through there. IV hen . all the wall space near the floor was ! full men must have climbed ou each other's shoulders to scratch their names and their units half-way to the ceiling'. As a contrast to this narrow den the other show place in Cologne Station is the Kaiser's suite of waiting rooms, which, though lie probably , did not, use them a dozen times since j the trution was built, arc costly apartj meats, with a broad marble hall and gilded curving staircase, with Imperial 1 eagles ruffling their feathers on ever;, I side. j