Up to this time I had escaped any interference from the Germans, perhaps because I scarcely ventured into the streets for the first two months of the German occupation, and possibly also because, from a previous long residence in Roubaix, I spoke French fluently. Strangely enough, though I went to the Town Hall with the rest and supplied true particulars of my age and nationality, papers were issued to me as a matter of course, and never during the whole two years and more of my presence in their midst did the enemy molest me in any way.
Control cards for men of military age.
The only incident which throws any light on this curious immunity occurred about the middle of 1915. Like all other men of military age, I was required to present myself once a month at a public hall, in order to have my control card, which was divided into squares for the months of the year, marked in the proper space with an official stamp "Kontrol, July," or "August," or whatever the month might be. We were summoned for this process by groups, first those from 17 to 25, then those from 25 to 35, and so on. Hundreds of young fellows would gather in a room, and one by one, as their names were called, would take their cards to be stamped by a noncommissioned officer sitting at a table on the far side of the room. On the occasion I have in mind, the noncommissioned officer said to me, "You are French, aren't you?" I answered, "No." "Are you Belgian?" "No," again. "You are Dutch, then?" A third time I replied "No."
At this stage an officer who had been sauntering up and down the room smoking a cigarette came to the table, took up my card, and turning to the man behind the table, remarked, "It's all right. He's an American." I did not trouble to enlighten him. That is probably why I enjoyed comparative liberty.
The German policy of enslavement.
Enslavement is part of the deliberate policy of the Germans in France. It began by the taking of hostages at the very outset of their possession of Roubaix. A number of the leading men in the civic and business life of the town were marked out and compelled to attend by turns at the Town Hall, to be shot on the spot at the least sign of revolt among the townspeople.
Treatment of girl mill operatives who refuse to work.
Not a few of the mill owners were ordered to weave cloth for the invaders, and on their refusal were sent to Germany and held to ransom. Many of the mill operatives, quite young girls, were directed to sew sandbags for the German trenches. They, too, refused, but the Germans had their own ways of dealing with what they regarded as juvenile obstinacy. They dragged the girls to a disused cinema hall, and kept them there without food or water until their will was broken.
Barbarity reached its climax in the so-called "deportations." They were just slave raids, brutal and undisguised.
The deportations or slave raids.