THE "GENTLE" GERMAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 2 October 1919, Page 5

THE "GENTLE" GERMAN.

BRUTALITY TO A NURSE. VTCTIM LEFT FOR DEAD. NOW A NEW ZEALANDER'S WIFE. Christchurch, Monday. After rescuing three British marines from a burning hospital at Antwerp, and being shot in the neck by Germans, Mrs. Dixon, (nee Mile. Marie Somers), a Belgian nurse who was known as "the angel of Antwerp," and who is now in Christchurch, escaped with her rescued soldiers to Ostcnd.

Returning to her hospital at Antwerp, she was taken by the Germans and subjected to such brutalities as only Germans would mete out to women, being whipped, stabbed, and cut, half starved, and imprisoned. She came to New Zealand by the troopship Corinthie as the bride of a New Zealand soldier, StatfSergeant G. E. Dixon, of Christchurch. The nurse recounts one experience she had near Ostend:—

I was paraded before ,the commandant, who demanded to know where the four boys (the British soldiers I had been succouring) were "I do not know," I replied. "They were not Belgians," he said; "but British. If you don't tell me I will whip you until you do." "If you want to know," I replied, "they were British." "Where are they?" he asked. "I givyou two minutes to think it over." Another Uhlan general stood over me with a horsewhip. I became afraid. "Fraulein, will you speak now?" he asked. "No," I repljed. They tore the clothes off my hack, and pushing me into the centre of the room, whipped me unmercifully. I fainted. On coming to, they asked: "Are you satisfled now?"

"No," I replied. "I will never tell you." They dragged the diamond ear-rings I was wearing from my ears, tearing the lobes, as you see, and tore the rings from my fingers. They rushed me into a cell until I should decide to tell. "Please don't think," I said, "that I shall ever tell, because I won't. Kill me!"

"No," said the general. "You shall suffer like a dirty swine."

A long time after he said: "If you don't tell what you know wo will drown you," saying which he smashed the water pipes running over the top of my cell and allowed the water to pour in. In Belgian houses we have, however, water meters after the style of your Euglinh gas meters, and at length I was able to turn off tlie water, not before it had come up an far as my knees. I stayed in this water for a day ana night without food, when my tormentor reappeared and said that he had changed his mind. Would I now become a Red Cross nurse and render assistance to German wounded? "I will never be a nurse for murderers," I replied. He merely laughed and said: "If you don't want to /e a nurse, will you go to Berlin as my wife?"

"You and your money you stole from the Belgian people could not tempt me," I said. He came to the edge of the water and tried to embrace me in his arms, b/t I struggled and repulsed him, shielding my face with my right arm.

The man then drew a short sword lie was carrying and slashed me through the bond and cheek, knocking out one of my teeth. You can see the marks here and here.

I reeled back, and as I tdrned from him he stabbed me in the back with his sword. I still Rnffer from the effects of that thrust. He left me for'dying, and I stayed in that water-logged cellar for nine days, existing on rice and water.

One sentinel was sorry for me. He had married i British woman in Belgium, and his sympathies were not with the Gennamns. One night he gave a fellow sentry a • bottle of champagne, making him drunk, and he gave me the