Cooper, Ethel – September 1914
As many of the men of her acquaintance are taken into custody in September 1914, Ethel Cooper bids farewell to a number of the women, who take an opportunity to leave Germany. Life for those associated with Germany’s allies is clearly getting tougher.
6.9.14
My dear Emmie,
There has been great bustling and excitement her this week, as all these people heard from the police that a train was to be arranged for the women and children to get away… They were to go to Berlin, then through to Holland. But the only thing that has happened is that all our men were arrested yesterday and today. There is nothing to be done, except with great difficulty to get a pass from the Commandant, and go and see one of them occasionally, and then one is only allowed three minutes… I shall have to pay the £10 for rent on the 1st of October – otherwise my landlord will certainly turn me out – he is not being very pleasant as it is.
The days go by somehow, and give one little to write about – on Monday we washed and on Tuesday we ironed – and on Wednesday we made plum jam, as the plums went down to ½ d a pound, and though sugar costs 3d, yet it is cheaper than butter.
And we had a quaint little idyll in the house too – Miss Hancock… has got engaged to the worthy red-haired young man with whom she has ‘been walking’. He proposed to her last week and she refused him… but when he was arrested on Saturday, she rushed off to the Commandant and got a pass to visit him as his fiancée. The meetings must be comical, for the conversation has to be had in German… and she can scarcely speak a word, and he can understand very little…
11.9.14
My dear Emmie,
…half the English colony burst into the house in great excitement – I mean the female half – the other half is safely in gaol! They had heard that special passes were being issued to women and children to leave… We bought and packed hampers, for it may take them anything from three days to a week to get across under present circumstances…
When they were once off, it seemed that I should have nothing left to do… But things keep turning up. First that poor Mr. Bennie… [N]ine days ago he simply vanished!… he had got out for a walk and had not been heard of again – of course he had been arrested in the street… On Saturday I tried to [see him] but could not get a permit for the prison. So that it was today before I got in. He was really in a deplorable state – just filthy, unshaved and already very nervy and shaky after a week’s solitary confinement…
19.9.14
My dear Emmie,
… Today I have written to Mr Bullock, asking him to send me money, to the American Ambassador in Copenhagen, and from there I can get it without trouble. It will not be here before the end of the year, but with care I can manage until then.
… The list of dead and wounded is enormous – long columns in the papers almost every day – yesterday it covered two sides of the newspaper, and that was only the Saxon and Prussian list for the day.
This week the banks seem to have begun stopping payment to English people… The clerk said ‘You are English, I think… we are limiting our payments to the English now…’. I said ‘I fancy I must have misunderstood you – do you mean to tell me that the deposits of private persons are being appropriated by your bank?’ ‘Certainly not appropriated,’ he said – ‘you will get your deposit back at the conclusion of the peace…’
27.9.14
My dear Emmie,
… Since a German submarine sunk four of our cruisers off Heligoland last week there has been little in the paper – the censure is strict, and either nothing favourable to Germany has happened… or there is a kind of breathing moment both in the East and West. But there is no lull in the appalling lists of dead and wounded…
If one could see some English papers one would feel better – one knows that half that is written about England in the papers here is a lie, and one refuses to believe that she is decrepit or dead, but she is taking a long while to make a move.
… I am making an application to get Mr. Bennie out [of prison] – I haven’t much hope of succeeding, but all the same I hear of several who have been got out, so I may as well try.
