"The world will have a right
to call us barbarians," said one of them in Ham. "But what can we do?
We are under orders. If we do not obey we shall be shot. It is the
cruelty of the High Command. It is the cruelty of war."
On the whole it seemed they had not misused the women. I heard no
tales of actual atrocity, though some of brutal passion. But many
women shrugged their shoulders when I questioned them about this and
said: "They had no need to use violence in their way of love--making.
There were many volunteers."
They rubbed their thumbs and fingers together as though touching money
and said, "You understand?"
I understood when I went to a convent in Amiens and saw a crowd of
young mothers with flaxen-haired babies, just arrived from the
liberated districts. "All those are the children of German fathers,"
said the old Reverend Mother. "That is the worst tragedy of war. How
will God punish all this? Alas! it is the innocent who suffer for the
guilty."
Eighteen months later, or thereabouts, I went into a house in Cologne,
where a British outpost was on the Hohenzollern bridge.
Pages:
775
776
777
778
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799