SENSATIONAL ESCAPES
In prison life one question looms up every day before many of the
prisoners. It is that of possible escape. During the three years I
spent in the Stadtvogtei several escapes took place. It would take
too long to relate here a story in detail of all the escapes which
occurred. I would like, however, to mention the case of two prisoners
who evaded the guards on three occasions; twice getting through the
lines of the camp of Ruhleben, and once escaping from the prison where
I was confined. The two men were: Wallace Ellison and Eric Keith.
They were Englishmen, and at the outbreak of hostilities they lived
in Germany. Mr. Ellison was employed with the United Shoe Machinery
Company, at Frankfort, and Mr. Keith was engaged with a firm the name
of which I do not remember. He was born in Germany of English parents.
The first escape of both prisoners took place from Ruhleben camp at
about the same time, but each in his turn had the misfortune to fall
into the hands of Prussian Guards near the frontier of Holland. They
were taken back to the jail at Berlin, where they were kept for several
months in close confinement. Mr. Ellison was guarded solitary and alone
for four months and a half. He was allowed no other food than the one
daily serving of black bread and the two servings of the traditional
soups.
Notwithstanding repeated applications to the German authorities for
transfer to Ruhleben, they were forcibly detained in prison, because
they refused to promise not to attempt further evasion. Numberless
complaints were addressed by these prisoners to the Kommandantur and to
the American Embassy in Berlin. All their efforts were unavailing. This
happened in 1915 and 1916.
In December, 1916, what may be termed a wholesale escape took place.
It was cleverly prepared a long time ahead. The prisoners somehow
obtained the services of an expert locksmith, himself a prisoner. He
made a key with which they were to open the prison gate facing on
Dirksen street. Arrangements had been made with minute care. Provisions
were obtained and forwarded outside to places known only to the
prisoners concerned. All was ready and the day named for escape. Eleven
prisoners of British nationality were walking in groups of two and
three in the jail yard between five and six o’clock in the afternoon,
in accordance with the daily custom. The doorkeeper occupied a room
near the outer gate. He was at this time talking to a non-commissioned
officer. The conversation was of a nature to absorb his whole
attention. Thanks to this fortuitous circumstance, the rescuing key was
introduced, unseen by the guards, into the lock by one of the eleven
prisoners. A moment after the gate opened and eleven British prisoners
disappeared from the jail and dispersed in the streets of Berlin.
Ellison and Keith were amongst them.
There was a real sensation in the jail when the yard gate was found
opened, fifteen minutes later. All the remaining prisoners were at once
locked in their cells. It was the only means by which the authorities
could ascertain exactly how many had succeeded in regaining their
freedom.
The officer who had gone off duty at about four o’clock in the
afternoon was apprised by telephone of what had taken place. Shortly
afterwards he arrived in a state of great excitement. His first act
was to throw the doorkeeper into a dungeon. By this time it had been
learned that eleven British prisoners had disappeared. The detective
office was notified, and telegrams were despatched to all the border
towns in Germany, notifying the authorities to be on the look-out for
the missing men. The whole force of detectives and the frontier guards
were put on their mettle.
Of the eleven escaped prisoners, ten–to our great regret–were
recaptured. Only one, a Mr. Gibson, got clean away. As to Ellison and
Keith, they were caught after ten days and ten nights of exciting,
exhausting experiences. The weather was very cold at that time,
and one may imagine what sufferings these two prisoners underwent
while attempting to wend their way to the frontier. The ten captured
prisoners were brought back to the jail one after the other. The
regulations henceforward became much more stringent and it was out of
all question for them to make any further application for transfer to
Ruhleben.
However, towards August, 1917, under an agreement made between Germany
and Great Britain, their hardships were somewhat lessened. One of
the clauses of this agreement stipulated that all prisoners who had
attempted to escape, and as a consequence were actually confined in
prison, should be immediately returned to the respective internment
camps. The German newspapers were received at the jail every day, and
no sooner had the report giving the clauses of this agreement been read
than most of the prisoners concerned professed that they could foresee
the dawn of their liberty. Ellison and Keith were particularly hopeful
and they informed me that once at Ruhleben no long time would elapse
before they would attempt to effect an escape into Holland.
Indeed, as early as September, they escaped from the Ruhleben camp,
both on the same day, but acting separately. They rejoined in Berlin,
and this time their attempt was successful. Together they succeeded
in reaching Holland. A postal card addressed to me from that country
by Mr. Ellison informed me of what had happened, without, of course,
giving any details.
Amongst the prisoners who had sojourned for several months with these
prisoners there was general rejoicing at their success. Last July I
had the great pleasure of meeting Ellison and Keith in London. In the
course of a never-to-be-forgotten evening we spent together, they
related the events following their third escape. They told of their
flight from Berlin to Bremen, from Bremen to the River Ems, then
through the marshes a few miles from the German-Holland frontier,
and, finally, their calling, at three o’clock in the morning, upon a
Dutch farmer, where they learned that they were well out of Germany.
It was a delight to hear these two men describe the rejoicing that
was manifested in the home of that farmer, at their good fortune. The
farmer’s wife, a worthy Dutch woman about sixty years of age, got up
from her bed to welcome these two Englishmen. She prepared a hearty
meal, after which the farmer, his wife, and my two friends danced
together round the room in a delirium of joy. Mr. Ellison has since
joined the English army and Mr. Keith the American army.
Another sensational escape was that of a Frenchman named B—. This man,
a soldier in the French army, formed part of a platoon which, at the
beginning of the war, was surrounded in a small wood in Belgium, in the
neighborhood of the French frontier. In order to avoid falling into
the hands of the Germans, he and some of his friends took refuge with
a Belgian peasant. They discarded their uniforms and donned civilian
clothes.
B— tried to flee to Holland by the north. He was caught and taken to
the concentration camp for the French in Germany. After a few months’
time he again succeeded in getting away. He was dressed in a German
uniform and even wore on his breast the ribbon of the Iron Cross. He
was caught and thrown into a cell, at the Berlin jail. Here he was
kept in solitary confinement, but finally was allowed to walk in the
corridors just as we were allowed. Then he conceived the daring project
of escaping through the roof, from his cell on the fifth floor of the
building.
The windows of these cells, on the fifth floor, were underneath the
roof which slightly overhangs, but which leaves no hold for the hand.
The plan of this Frenchman was to saw through and remove an iron bar,
get through the opening and climb on to the roof. This operation, which
I was to witness, was duly executed. It necessitated, I must admit, a
real acrobatic feat.
At eleven o’clock at night–so the prisoner informed me in advance–he
would begin his attempt to escape. About that hour I stood on a chair
so that my head was on a level with my window. In this way I could
observe the Frenchman’s movements. We were on the same floor.
He managed to saw off the iron bar at its socket, and thus with a
widened aperture he succeeded in passing through. He had protected
himself with a towel tied to other bars in order to guard against a
fall, which would inevitably have been fatal, since his window was
sixty feet above the level of the paved yard.
My friend found a fulcrum on a small plank which he succeeded in
placing at the top of his window, between the brick wall and the
horizontal bars which hold the vertical bars. This plank projected
about one foot beyond the outer wall. The working out of this scheme
was exceedingly daring and dangerous, and almost incredible, and it was
not long before the man, supporting himself with one hand on the little
plank, reached, with the other, the water spout fixed on the roof,
a short distance from the edge. The next instant he disappeared in
the darkness. But having reached the roof, he was not yet “out of the
wood,” for the outside of the prison formed a wall seventy-five feet
high. My friend, however, had made a rope about sixty feet in length.
He adjusted one end to the lightning-conductor and let the other end
fall down the side of the wall. He slid down this rope to within about
fifteen feet of the ground, and from that distance dropped on his feet.
We never saw him again, nor heard what became of him. But everyone of
us, the officials included, were agreed that this escape was one of the
most daring and extraordinary that had ever taken place.