What were Russian prisoner of war camps like during World War I?

The attitude towards war may have been the same throughout the ages. Anti-war should be classified as a consistent human emotion, while those who support and are enthusiastic about it are nothing more than the irrational fallacy of an accidental era. But this bias has recently been corrected by Alexander Waugh's The House of Wittgenstein.

The protagonist of the story "Wittgenstein House", Paul Wittgenstein, is the elder brother of the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who is also an outstanding person in the European and American cultural circles—— An outstanding "left-handed pianist". His right hand? His right hand was destroyed by Russian artillery fire and abuse during World War I. The following excerpt begins with Paul becoming a prisoner of war in the Russian army.

In the vast land east of Krasniszlo, there are no railways and few roads. Those prisoners deemed healthy enough to march were forced to march, sometimes up to 15 miles a day, sometimes driven by Cossack sabers, with only a piece of bread and a bowl of cabbage soup to eat every morning. They walked for two or three weeks until they reached a railway station, and their exile on the railroad began.

In the first attack on Galicia, the Russians captured 100,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war. These people, plus their own large numbers of wounded, as well as the displaced Poles who gathered in search of food and shelter, created a vast and messy migration of despair. To feed this migrating army, the Russians were not well prepared and well-equipped.

Those who survived the long march to the interior witnessed the kindness and consideration of the Russian doctors. They were also helped by Russian peasants, who showed mercy to the Austrian and German prisoners of war, giving them bread and clothing as they passed through their villages.

But there are also many rumors that expose the cruelty, fraud and greed of ordinary Russian soldiers to the world. Article 4 of the Hague Convention clearly stipulates that all belligerents must treat prisoners of war humanely. They must be placed under the power of the enemy government and not handed over to the individuals or forces who captured them. All personal property, except weapons, horses, and military documents, remained the property of the captured soldier. In fact, the soldiers of the Russian army, who were themselves underpaid, malnourished, and frightened, emptied the pockets of their prisoners, taking away money, letters, watches, notebooks, knives, and other items of their choice. of anything. In the prisoner of war hospital, the Russian guards took away all the clothing within reach of their hands - coats, shirts, boots, and even the blankets in the wards were missing. Because hospitals were allocated funding based on the number of patients coming in and out, cunning staff would needlessly transfer even the most critically ill prisoners from one hospital to another. Prisoners were slowly moved barefoot and sometimes at night (so as not to be seen by the Russian people) to freezing railway and coal-car stations. They were shuttled back and forth between Russian cities for weeks, often only to be returned to where they started. The hospital from which he was transferred.

Left-handed pianist Paul Wittgenstein

In this way, in the long months after being captured, Paul found himself moving from Chelm to Minsk and Kiev , Orel, Moscow, Petrograd, and then to Omsk, all the way on the narrow, crowded, smelly, and louse-infested Typrosky - connected by 40 to 50 trucks, prison cars, and livestock cars. Together they form a typical prisoner of war train.

There is an iron stove and a bucket for washing in the middle of each carriage. A row of thick wooden bunks are fixed on both sides. There is also a separate space for armed guards, with Your own bed.

According to an Austrian prisoner of war's recollection: "Everyone had to face either to the left or to the right, huddled together. We had to turn over at the same time, because only by turning our bodies completely Stay parallel so that you can be accommodated by the available space."

When Paul was lying on Tieproski's bare bed, jolting across 7,000 miles of foreign territory, there was something that made him happy. Not much. For several days, he slept crowded together with other prisoners in a carriage full of lice, with his eyes wide open and the wounds on his arms festering.

He was particularly disgusted by the thought of rats scurrying around his body. A few years later he confided to a close friend: "They still appear in my nightmares from time to time, and I am so thankful that my Blood was immune to bug bites. Other captives couldn't tolerate bedbugs and lice, but I could brush them away without getting bitten."

What was even harder to get rid of was Paul's after surgery. The physical and emotional pain he endured for weeks to months was exacerbated by the practical difficulties he faced in daily life because of his disability. Suddenly, he couldn't tie his shoes when he woke up in the morning, couldn't cut his food, and couldn't dress himself properly. Géza Zichy, whom Paul knew well, lost his right arm in a hunting accident when he was 15 years old. He recalled the first time he tried to dress himself: "It took me three hours. But I did it. I made it with doorknobs, furniture, my feet, and my teeth. At meals, I didn't eat anything I couldn't cut, and now I can peel apples, clip my nails, and ride a horse. He was a good marksman and even learned some piano.

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As we all know, phantom limb pain is a physical and mental disorder that affects all amputee patients, and its cause is still unclear in the medical community. Some people believe that even if part of the body tissue is removed, The brain still operates according to the blueprint of the complete body. Others believe that the brain continues to release signals because it does not receive a response from the remaining limb, thus worsening the nerves that originally controlled the remaining limb. Regardless of the cause, the symptoms are severe and abnormal. There is a burning pain in the stump, a feeling that the missing fist or elbow is being squeezed tighter and tighter until it bursts, or that the entire limb is somehow inexplicably kinked or bent. Try to see clearly that the arm is no longer there. , could not free the patient, because even though his eyes had confirmed the impossibility of the situation, the pain continued.

It was only three weeks after his captivity that Paul was allowed to write to all the prisoners at home for the first time. Their letters were censored by the Russians, but it was not for this reason that they adopted a cheerful tone in their letters, not to mention that they did not want to upset their families with the details of their desperate situation. Feeling shame, even guilt, by leaving the front lines and abandoning or dishonoring their families and their armed comrades, Swedish Red Cross nurse Elsa Brandstr?m, recognized as the Angel of Siberia, mitigated the Austro-Hungarians. Having done more than anyone else to make prisoners of war suffer, she told in her memoirs the story of a poor Austrian officer cadet:

A young man lay in a corner among the mute livestock of his father's farm. Never died in such filth. "Give my mother my love, but don't tell her how miserable I died. "These were his last words.