Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 267, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 November 1917 — German People Are Starving [ARTICLE]

German People Are Starving

Teuton Wife of American Soldier Tells of Conditions There. HARD FIGHT TO GET AWAY Woman Has Harrowing Experiences in Trying to Leave CountrySays People Are Fleeing - When They Can. San Francisco. —The real conditions in the fatherland were described here by Mrs. George B. Szadelski, the German wife of an American soldier. Mrs. Szadelski arrived here after a plucky fight of over five months to get herself and three children out of Germany and over here, where she could join her/husband, who is with the quartermaster’s corps, United States army, at Honolulu. “Germany is starving. Her people do not want war, and are fleeing the country when they can. * Not so much the war, but food and where it is to come from is what the German people are thinking of,” said Mrs. Szadelski. “When the people crowd up too eagerly in the street, waiting to get their small bit of food, men come out with whips, or pour hot water on them to make them orderly. That is in the town of Mecklenburg; there we stand waiting two hours or more in rain or snow. But in Berlin it is worse, and men and women wait in line all night.

Buy With Cards. a “All things are bought by cards, even clothing and shoes. If I need a new suit or my little boy needs new underwear, I must go to the officials and explain the need and show them the worn things. “A grown man or woman gets half a pound of meat a week, a tenth of a pound of butter and three pounds of bread. This bread is made of potatoes and a kind of green turnip, and Is so soggy that only a little can be eaten at a Time. There Is no coffee, except a kind made from the turnip, and there Is no rice. One gets a fourth of a pound of sugar, and there is no soap at all. • “Famine? There’s a famine now. The rich—yes, the rich can buy a goose, but they must pay for it 175 marks (about $44). I have .seen wild ravens sold In Berlin for three and one-half marks. Everything is much worse than America thinks. “Yet there will be no revolution. That Is because there are no men at

home, to make a revolution. "The women look at one another and shake their heads. ‘When the men come back,’ is the word they pass around. We have men of fifty and seventy for home defense, and as doctors and officials, we have boys of fourteen. All other men are in the army.” Mrs. Szadelski said she never received SSOO which her husband sent her last February. A woman friend of hers who went to the authorities for money sent from America was told that no more money from the source would be given to any private person.

Do Not Want War.

“The people do not want war, but what can they do? They cannot even say what they think or there would soon be chains around their necks. "Yet there is bitter feeling against America. I would be sorry for any American soldier that falls into the hands of the Germans, either the soldiers or the people. That is because the newspapers talk always of the evil-doing of America —and the people believe what they rend. They began hating America long ago, when they heard it was aiding England. It is not France so much, but England and America that Germany hates.” Sergeant Szadelski had been an American soldier for years before he met and married the little German woman, during a visit to Germany several years ago, but he left Just before the war. This led to suspicions that he was an American spy. and so when his wife wished to leave Germany last May she had an immense deal of red tape to untangle. For a month she had to go before the police each day; then she was summoned to Berlin. At the Danish border every scrap of paper but her passport was taken away, and in Copenhagen she was received coldly by the American legation, because they would not believe that the wife of an American soldier would speak only German. After correspondence with Secretary Lansing and others, the legation was finally convinced that she was not a spy, and she was permitted to sail for New York. She will leave In a few days with their three children for Honolulu.