"At the beginning they had a cruel way of arresting people. They would
march them off as they stood, not letting them communicate with wives
or friends or relatives. I know of one lady who for about two months
did not know where her husband was, while he knew just as little about
her. Two Serbian ladies, mother and daughter, who had also been at
Salzerbad, had been staying at a little watering place in Dalmatia,
where they had gone for many years. One evening, when they were only
dressed in cotton dressing gowns, they were asked by an official to
come down to a steamer lying at the wharf. Only for a few minutes, he
said; there were just a few questions to be asked. So they went just as
they were, and went on the boat with several others; some one began to
ask them questions, when, to their horror, they noticed the ship was
moving. They were taken right away, as they were. At every port they
stopped and brought in others in the same way.
"In Fiume they landed, were handcuffed two and two, and marched through
the streets to the prison. There the daughter and her 65-year-old
mother, who had been also handcuffed, spent the night in a cell,
with only two upright chairs in it. Next day they and all the other
prisoners collected up to then were packed into third-class carriages,
packed as close as they would go, and in each compartment two soldiers,
fully accoutred, with fixed bayonets, and smoking like chimneys.
Although it was hot Summer, all the windows were kept shut. In this way
they were brought to Marburg--a journey of some four or five hours in
ordinary time--but they took two days for it. All this time they had
nothing to eat. People came to the train selling things; but, as all
their money had been taken away from them on the boat, they could get
nothing. In Marburg they were put in the prison, and kept there for
eight months."