Free Agent of Peace by Jennifer Hobhouse Balme Page A

such will always be remembered and the whole issue is stamped indelibly on my mind. The gates fell to and it was over. I was almost dead with exhaustion. I had been on my legs for hours – bad enough by itself and in addition going through tense mental work and strong emotion, having at the same time to be wary, offend none and keep outwardly calm.
    And yet the mere physical control of my heart seemed to want all my limited powers.
    Sanatorium at Charlottenburg
    We drove to the Sanatorium in Charlottenburg where Dr. Weiler had his patients – those suffering mentally. There were about sixty patients at that moment – housed excellently in four or five well-furnished villas in a quiet avenue each in a pleasant garden. An Arab, a Jamaican negro etc, were amongst them. I spoke cheerful words to all. Dr. Weiler and an Assistant shewed me all. The treatment seemed excellent – in two classes – those paying for themselves and those paid for thro’ the American Embassy. The former were in a really beautifully furnished villa, with single bedrooms like boudoirs. A group of men were here who made a very bad impression on me – real bounders – mostly suffering from heart trouble for which they had been going through a course at [Bad] Nauheim and there captured – their complaints were childish and ridiculous. I spoke very gently to them and explained matters, the doctor also spoke verygently. We did not forget they were heart patients. But they were unreasonable to an extent which showed they were also suffering mentally. Yet they were enjoying every comfort, even luxury, with the one great exception of their liberty and the need of obeying a few disciplinary rules such as lights out at 9 p.m. and no gambling for high stakes allowed.
    I had far more pity for the men in the second class, who were two or three in a room (large airy pleasant rooms looking on the garden) for they were many of them in a sad condition bordering on insanity. I can’t forget Mr Brakewell – an artist – or old David Lloyd (70) a seaman and others.
    It is impossible in this short account to give any idea of the piled up information gained that long day by my own eyes and ears – apart entirely from the official side put before me, or the prisoners’ side to some extent told me.
    I shall always remember it as one of the fullest and intensist [ sic ] days of my life – during which every moment was lived by one’s every faculty of mind and body to the fullest possible extent. And through all was the great drain upon one’s sympathy.
    We drove rapidly to the hotel. I was much exhausted – and thankful that the two men departed, appreciating my desire to rest. But I had not been long on my sofa before Elisabeth Rotten arrived bringing the dear old Frau Minna Cauer with her. We talked long and fully. Elisabeth Rotten confirmed that there could be no great need of food in Ruhleben as men allowed out on parole from there had proposed to her a plan for sending out parcels for a help for their families.
    Frau Cauer was so sweet – she thanked me so earnestly for coming – she was deeply moved as she asked with tears streaming down her face: ‘Dear, dear Miss Hobhouse – Why, tell me why, does all the world hate us so?’ She went on: ‘My people are honest, they are industrious and mind their own business and to me it seems without detracting from any other nation much less the English whom I have always admired – that my people are capable and clever and industrious. Why then are we hated?’
    I could only say that I thought the dislike lay in that very fact – they were too capable and successful and the result was fear and jealousy from which hatred had grown.
    They had been with me an hour when Dr. Alice Salomon came to take me to see Heine. It was a fine evening and we took an old open cab such as adorned the streets of Berlin at this moment and drove to a