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132. Flora Shaw/Lady Lugard Belgian War Refugees

404 Chapter 11 World War I and the Russian Revolution

During World War I, Flora Shaw/Lady Lugard (1852-1929) organized a War Refugees Committee in London to assist thousands of Belgium refugees to find housing accommodations in England. For this work, she was awarded a Dame of the British Empire award in 1916. The award was especially fitting as it was preceded by many years of activity on behalf of the British Empire. Described as a "Crusader for Empire,"[ Shaw served as the first Colonial Editor of The Times from 1893 until 1900. While at the newspaper, she met Sir Frederick Lugard, later appointed High Commissioner of Northern Nigeria, whom she married in 1902. The organizational network of the War Refugees Committee had its ori- gins in the Ulster Relief formed prior to World War I in anticipation of a possi- ble civil war in Ireland. An Irish Protestant, Lady Lugard opposed the Irish Home Rule Bill of 1912 because it left Protestants in a minority in politics and she believed it was an opening wedge to the dissolution of the British Empire. Fearful that the bill's passage would provoke violence in Ulster, Lady Lugard helped to organize the Ulster Relief to arrange for the evacuation of thousands of Protestant women and children from Ulster to England. The outbreak of World War I temporarily eclipsed the Irish question. As the German army swept through Belgium, Lady Lugard activated the Ulster Relief network to as- sist Belgian refugees. She obtained support from the British and Belgian govern- ments as well as the Roman Catholic Church in England as most of the refugees would be Catholic. In forming the War Refugees Committee, which received its first refugees on August 24, 1914, Lady Lugard specified that it "should have no politics and no religious distinctions." She became especially concerned with finding appropriate housing for middle-class and professional refugees. The willingness of British families to house refugees began to wane by the end of the year and donated homes were converted into hostels as an alternative. The first document reproduced here is a solicitation for these hostels. The second, "The Work of the War Refugees Committee," is an address given by Lady Lugard to the Royal Society of Arts on March 24, 1915, and published in the same year. The committee did not conclude its work with the Armistice but continued until the end of January 1919 to assist refugees with all the necessary arrange- ments for their return to Belgium.

lHelen Callaway and Dorothy O. Helly, "Crusader for Empire: Flora ShawlLady Lugard," in Nupur Chaudhuri and Mar- garet Strobel, Western Women and Imperialism. Complicity and Resistance (Ind.: 1992).

From The Work of The War Refugees Committee, an address given by Lady Lugard to the Royal Society of Arts, March 24th, 1915. © 1915 by G. Bell and Sons, Lrd., London.

A. "Lady Lugard's Hostels for Belgian Refugees"

Committee-Lady Lugard. The Hon. Mrs. Roland Leigh. Stuart Hogg, Esq. These Hostels have been instituted by Lady Lu- gard for the reception of Belgians who have hith- erto lived on their private means but have come to the end of their resources. Also for some of a poorer class who have received hospitality offered for a definite period which has now come to an end.

There are at present eleven houses, accommo- dating a total of about 400 people. Two of these are more in the nature of hospitals, the rest are carried on like private hotels or boarding-houses. Care is taken to make the life as pleasant as pos- sible. Guests are placed in the different houses according to their social rank; there is a capable manageress in every house, a Belgian cook, and to a large extent the other servants are Belgian.

In many cases, where the refugees have some small means of their own, it has been found de- sirable to assist in payment of the rent of flats, or by direct contributions. At present 125 are helped in these ways.

Lady Lugard's aim has been to make each house a "little corner of Belgium," as one of the guests happily expressed it. There is a committee ofladies, who visit these houses regularly and see that the in- mates are as happy and comfortable as possible.

All expenditure is accounted for to the Central Committee, and care is taken that there is no waste.

The scheme has a certain amount of financial help from the War Refugees Committee, but all expenses of furnishing, rent, lighting, and general upkeep are borne by Lady Lugard's Committee.

Your help is asked to carry on this undertaking, which is one of the attempts to repay a small por- tion of the immense debt we owe to the unhappy Belgian nation.

Cheques and postal orders should be made out to Lady Lugard, and addressed to her at

51, Rutland Gate, S.W.l

IThis was Lady Lugard's home address.

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B. "The Work of the War Refugees Committee"

I have been asked to speak to-day about the work of the War Refugees Committee.

The work of the War Refugees Committee is intimately associated with what will, I believe, hereafter be regarded as one of the most acutely pathetic chapters of our island history. Because we are an island, because a stretch of sea lies be- tween us and Europe, because, above all, we have a Navy which for a thousand years has known how to defend that strip of sea, we have been able, not for the first time in our history, to offer refuge to a people stricken and driven out from their proper home.

There is no need for me to speak now of what Belgium has done-we all have the knowledge in our hearts. In the Titanic struggle in which we are engaged Belgium bore for a time the burden of the world, and the world can never forget, and never repay.

... An appeal was sent to the papers on Sun- day night, 1 and as a net result of our exertions we were enabled on the following Monday morning to take possession as a Committee of the empty offices which have since developed into the well-known headquarters of the War Refugees Committee at Aldwych. That first morning we had hardly pens and ink, we had not chairs to sit upon, the offices were almost entirely without furniture, and while we were trying to organize our immediate plan of opera- tions the response to our Appeal, which had ap- peared only in that morning's papers, took the embarrassing if at the same time encouraging form of no less than 1,000 letters, all contain- ing offers of hospitality and help.

The response of the country to the movement was absolutely phenomenal. The 1,000 letters of that day became 2,000 on the following day, then 3,000, then 4,000, then 5,000, and on the day on which we received 5,000 letters there

lThe date was August 23, 1914.

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were also 1,200 callers at the Office. Every letter and every visitor brought proposals of help in one form or another. Within a fortnight we had at our disposal hospitality for 100,000 persons. Cheques, clothing, food, offers of personal ser- vice flowed in upon us. I could spend hours rather than minutes in telling you the details of that first outpouring of public generosity. The sense of the country was made absolutely clear that if it could not share the acute suffering caused to the people of Belgium by the war it de- sired to diminish that suffering by every means that it possessed. These offers came not from one class nor from one place, but from all classes and from all places. Catholic and Protestant, Jew and Nonconformist, high and low, rich and poor united, all unaware, in a spontaneous tribute of sympathy and respect. Nations, like individuals, have their moments of unconscious self-revela- tion. It was a moment which unmistakably re- vealed the heart of England.

The enthusiasm and volume of the move- ment were cheering, and no offers touched us more deeply than the hundreds we received, often on postcards, from the very poor. ...

Among the offers which had been made to us was one from the Army and Navy Stores proposing to lend us an empty shirt factory con- veniently situated just opposite Victoria Station. ... Willing help came from every side, and the result was achieved that before three on the following afternoon the shirt factory had been converted into a hostel, where 250 beds were made up with clean sheets and pillow-cases; a kitchen was arranged down-stairs with eight cooking-stoves; dining-tables were ready laid; and a hot dinner for several hundred people awaited the arrival of the refugees. Our first batch of 250 arrived there that afternoon. We disposed of the others in different places, and from that day, though we continued to receive refugees in London at the rate of several hun- dreds per day, and were often at our wits' end what to do, not one who reached our hands was ever left without food and lodging.

The experience of this first week gave us the formation of the principal Departments of the War Refugees Committee ....

Our first need was obviously a Card Index and Correspondence Department ....

We needed a Transport Department to meet refugees at the stations to convey them to and from the Refugees ....

Our next obvious need was an organized sys- tem of fitting the refugees into the offers of hospitality which were received for them. This has remained from the beginning the most complicated and difficult work we have had to do. A Department, afterwards known as our Al- location Department, was organized at once under Lady Gladstone, Mrs. Alfred Lyttelton, and Mrs. Gilbert Samuel, who have been as- sisted in the work by an army of willing volun- teers. The work of this Department, of which a beginning had been made in the Belgian Con- sulate even before the War Refugees Commit- tee came into existence, has since been carried on in four main divisions. There has been our Central Allocation Department, of which the direction has remainded in the hands of Mrs. Gilbert Samuel. ... There has been the Alloca- tion of the Belgian Consulate, also carried on at Aldwych, under the direction of the Misses Rothschild and a group of helpers, and there has been the Allocation of the Catholic Women's League, under the direction of Miss Streeter, working always in co-operation with Aldwych, but carried on from their own head- quarters in Victoria Street. In addition to these there has been also the Allocation, carried on independently of Aldwych, by the Jewish com- munity, who from their own private offers have provided for upwards of 6,000 people. The Catholic ladies have allocated upwards of 6,000. In the Miss Rothschild's room at Ald- wych some 30,000 have been either allocated or helped in other ways. Our own two branches of Allocation have since the beginning of the movement arranged for the placing of between 50,000 and 60,000 persons. In all its branches the War Refugees Committee has found homes for about 100,000 persons.

A Department taking its rise in the same ne- cessities as the Allocation Department proper is the Deparrmen; c£ Local Committees. which early in :::.:: .=::0>= :u~"'C! rhemselves

throughout the country for the better manage- ment of local offers of hospitality, while work- ing in correspondence with Aldwych ....

To these Departments one other of great im- portance was added in the first days. It was Out Clothing Department, with headquarters at 23, Warwick Square. Here Lady Emmott, ably as- sisted by Lady MacDonnell and other devoted ladies, has been enabled by the generosity of the public to distribute nearly a million garments, including much-needed boots and shoes....

It is as a task of consolation that we have from the beginning conceived of our work. I regret to have detained you so long with a description of the machinery by which the work was done. I take you back now to the days when the first refugees, fleeing from the terror of fire and sword, began to reach our shores. These refugees were different from the refugees who are now arriving. They had actu- ally borne the first onslaught of German fury. Men had seen their wives and daughters shot, and worse than shot, before their eyes. Fathers and mothers had seen their little chil- dren trampled to death under German feet. Old and young had alike been driven before the bayonet and placed as shields to protect the enemy from Belgian bullets. Some had been forced to dig graves, and even to bury men who were not yet dead. All had been smoked and burned out of their pillaged homes, holding themselves lucky if they were not forced back to be consumed in the funeral pyres of their do- mestic possessions. It has become the fashion now to cast doubt upon the authenticity of deeds fit only for the annals of the Middle Ages. Those of us who helped at that time nightly to receive the refugees as they arrived can never forget the tales of inconceivable hor- ror which were poured into our ears, nor the convincing simplicity of narration which made it impossible to doubt their general ttuth. I re- member the first refugee with whom I hap- pened to speak about herself. It was not a horrible case-on the contrary, quite simple- but it brought home to me with shock of real- ization what was happening within an ordinary day's journey of London. It was only a mother

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feeding her child with a basin of bread and milk in one of our Refuges. I asked her where she came from. She said "Charleroi." "Then you have seen the fighting?" "Oh, yes, I carried him-indicating the baby-out under the Ger- man guns." It was nothing. She had had the luck to escape, but the contrast between the peacefulness of her actual occupation and her words brought home what she had escaped from. In the same Refuge on a later day there was a man whose face was like the face of a tragic fate. He did not speak, he did not move. The ladies who were working in the Refuge ap- proached him for some time in vain. One re- minded him that he had his wife, while many had lost their wives, and at last he spoke. "Yes," he said, "I have my wife! But we had five chil- dren, and we have not one left. Four of the little ones were trampled to death under the feet of a German regiment, and my little girl, my el- dest, fourteen years old, was given to the Ger- man soldiery, who misused her before my eyes. Afrerwards they took her away with the regi- ment." And he fell back to the only thing he seemed able to say, "We had five children-we have not one left." The stories which we heard at that time, daily and nightly, from not one alone, but from practically every refugee who reached us, were such as surpass all imagination of horror and brutality .... It was also abun- dantly evident that they were not the isolated acts of brutal or drunken individuals. Evidence was unanimous, and to our minds conclusive, that the crimes were committed in pursuance of a general order from above.

I will not hold your imagination in this at- mosphere. Let it be placed to the credit of twentieth-century civilization that the univer- sal abhorrence aroused by the conduct of the German army towards civilians was such as to force German authorities to a recognition of the mistake they had committed. Orders to terror- ize the population were apparently withdrawn, and, so far as we are aware, the brutalities of the first weeks of the campaign have for the present ceased....

The first chapter of Government interven- tion was to relieve the War Refugees Commit-

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tee of the expense and difficulty of providing Refuges in London.2 The Government took the Alexandra Palace, and in that and other avail- able public institutions it organized immedi- ately, under the Metropolitan Asylums Board and the Board of Guardians, Refuges which had a total capacity of about 8,000 persons. After the fall of Antwerp, Earl's Court Camp, with a further capacity of 4,000 persons, was added to the government Refuges ....

The first refugees arrived usually in a state of absolute destitution. Their constant prayer was that they might be immediately allowed to work and to earn for themselves some portion back of what they had lost. But an opinion was at that time held that no attempt should be made to obtain employment for these refugees in the ordinary labour market of the country, and the lavish hospitality which was offered to them encouraged the hope that they might be amply provided for by private beneficence dur- ing the continuance of the war.

The first work of the War Refugees Com- mittee when the refugees arrived in the Gov- ernment Refuges was, therefore, to supply them as far as possible with immediate neces- saries. They needed everything. Besides the substantial requirements of clothes and shoes, they wanted combs, brushes, soap, hair-pins, boot-laces, braces, needles, cotton, thimbles- everything that even the poorest find necessary in daily life. The men, of course, urgently wanted tobacco; the women wanted knitting- needles and wool to knit. We did Out best to supply all these, and among the small articles which at that time were distributed freely none were more eagerly accepted than rosaries. We gave them away by thousands. The exodus had been so sudden that they had apparently in many cases been left behind, and men and women alike among the first arrivals from the Walloon country seemed anxious to possess themselves of this usual accompaniment of prayer.

2Prime Minister Asquith pledged government assistance to Belgian refugees on September 9, 1914.

· .. They seemed themselves to realize, in the tragic extremity of their distress, that they had lost everything except their God, and I cannot easily convey the touching fervour of the prayers in the chapels of the Refuges at which I once or twice incidentally assisted. Piety, courage, extraordinary fortitude, and overflow- ing heartfelt gratitude for all that was being done for them in England were the principal characteristics that enlisted our sympathy and admiration for our guests ....

The refugees were supposed to remain in the London Refuges for a period of only three to five days at the outside. Once rested and re- fitted it was the work of the War Refugees Committee to pass them on to the permanent homes so cordially offered by the hospitality of the country ....

· .. At the beginning of the movement refugees had to be dealt with only at the rate of 100 or 200 per day. From the date of the public offer of national hospitality made by the Gov- ernment, the number increased steadily ....

· .. During the stress created by the fall of Antwerp.I when upwards of 4,000 refugees ar- rived in one day in London by trainloads from the Continent, and as many as 2,000 had to be sent in small individual groups to different sta- tions of the British Isles, a total of 6,000 had to be handled every day! It has been estimated that during this period as many as 8,000 and 10,000 refugees crossed the Channel daily to our shores. No warning nor preparation could be given as to the numbers to be dealt with. While the crisis lasted they poured in day and night, taxing the energies of the whole organi- zation almost to breaking-point ....

The crisis lasted only a couple of weeks. The occupation of Os tend by the Germans on Octo- ber 17th closed the Belgian coast and stopped the daily transport service. Since that time refugees have been only able to reach us by way of Holland, and though this country has con- tinued to provide such facilities as are possible

3The fall of Antwerp rook place on October 10, 1914.

for their transit, the figures of the daily arrivals have fallen considerably. The total for Novem- ber was the lowest for any month since the be- ginning of the war. In December and January the numbers again mounted, giving a total of 12,000 for December and 14,000 for January. Refugees are still, notwithstanding the dangers of mines and submarines and the prohibition of our blockade zone, arriving in numbers which are to be counted daily in three figures. But the rush is over. We are no longer working under the same conditions of pressure.

There are noticeable also some other remark- able differences. We are working now with a different class of refugee. The simple country folk of the first exodus have given place to the urban population of the great towns, and they come to us under different conditions. The early refugees had, as I have told you, suffered in their own persons all the worst horrors of war. Since the fall of Antwerp the flight has been rather-though not of course wholly- from "the wrath to come." Many refugees are fleeing from what they fear may happen rather than from what has actually happened. I speak chiefly for the moment of the working-classes. Many of those now coming have been attracted to this country by the accounts sent back in the first moments of relief and gratitude by the ear- lier refugees ....

The gradual development of the situation which has brought us a different class of refugee has also brought about a very important modi- fication of opinion with regard to the condi- tions of their reception. It has been decided that the employment of refugees instead of being deprecated should now be encouraged, and that instead of depending for subsistence on the hospitality of the country they should, as far as possible, be enabled to support themselves .... Belgian Labour Bureaux work- ing in connection with the Central Labour Bureaux have been established in the Govern- ment Refuges, as also in the Rink at Aldwych. Recruiting Bureaux have been established in the Government Refuges, by means of which Belgians of military age are enabled to join

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their colours and return to the front at Flanders ....

Outside these questions the problem with which since Christmas we have been most acutely pre-occupied is the problem of giving suitable help to the urgent needs of the proper- tied and professional classes. This is a class with which I have myself been thrown into close and constant touch, and the sorrows and difficulties of their position are very vivid to me. They have suffered, of course, horribly in regard to their material possessions, and the numbers increase daily of persons accustomed to live in the com- fort of comparative affluence who are reduced to absolute penury. Such cases call for the sincerest sympathy and for practical help ....

In the early part of the movement such cases as these were provided for by private hospital- ity, and I come now to the greatest change of all which the movement has undergone. The movement of private hospitality, which has provided from first to last for a figure approach- ing to something like a quarter of a million refugees, has, as was to a certain extent in- evitable, exhausted its first impulse. About Christmas time we began to realize that the of- fers of hospitality had ceased. No fresh offers came, and hosts who had previously had Bel- gians in their houses wrote that they would shortly be needing this accommodation for other purposes. Our Allocation Department be- came a Department of Re-Allocation. Gifts of clothing also sensibly diminished.

... The part of private generosity for better- class refugees still remains to bring the bare ne- cessities of life up to the standard which the nation would wish to offer in such cases as those I have just now cited.

There are many obvious ways in which this can be done. Among the most generally suc- cessful so far has been the organization of large houses on the basis of gratuitous hotels. I have myself organized two or three such houses ....

Another way of meeting the necessities of the class of refugees of whom we are now speak- ing is by paying the rent of furnished flats, in which a very small grant is sometimes enough

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to render domestic life a possibility. Among the propertied and professional classes there are some who have still some small resources ....

I would like to have been able to do justice to other institutions for the assistance of refugees which have from the beginning of the movement developed as branches of the various Departments at Aldwych ....

A Department which is probably doing in its way as much humane work as any other is what we call the "Missing Relatives" Department .... We have, of course, now registered the ad- dresses of many thousands of refugees .... In the "Lost Relatives" section all urgent cases, such, for instance, as a father or mother searching for their lost children, or a husband his wife, ete., are handled immediately by our Correspon- dence Department, who make every effort to trace the missing person. The machinery which is used for tracing the letters is put in opera- tion, and I am glad to say that we frequently succeed in finding and uniting the members of families who have lost each other in the flight.

... I would like to say that our work would have been absolutely impossible had it not been for the devoted, generous, and regular support of hundreds of volunteers who have given every bit as much as we have given, and who have

been content to do it-to come early, to stay late, to work day after day unflinchingly at the least interesting tasks, to spend their strength, their emotions, their money, and their time in the background, so to speak, of our organiza- tion, without a thought of anything but the help that they could give. These volunteers have come from every rank. I have mentioned 500. Had we wanted 5,000 we could have had them. I am almost ashamed even to speak of thanks or recognition where it has been so little sought. I would only say of many of Out un- mentioned helpers that their names should be written in letters of gold, were it possible that any crue record could be kept of the service which this movement has called forth.

... In the details which I have given you we are simply working out the national resolution that the exiles now in our midst shall be cared for, helped, and protected to the limits of our ability until the day dawns for them, when they may re- turn to the homes they love. We see no end, and we desire to see no end, to our exertions but the day of repatriation. Be that day near or far, it is our hope to continue our work till it is reached, and we look with quiet confidence and absolute assurance to the public we know to give us the full support of its sympathy and its help.

133. E. Sylvia Pankhurst "How to Meet Industrial Conscription" With her mother, Emmeline and her older sister, Christabel, Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) in 1903.1

For the cause of suffrage, she endured fifteen arrests; nine hunger, sleep, and thirst strikes; and several forced feedings. In 1912, Sylvia Pankhurst formed the East London Federation of the WSPU in the East End. Critical of how the WSPU had lost much of its former working-class base and was now predominantly middle class, she argued that the WSPU should seek the support of, if not an alliance with,

The Woman's Dreadnought, 20 March 1915.

IOn the WSPU's formation, see Emmeline Pankhurst, Source 129 in Chapter 10.

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137. Women's Popular Protests in Berlin The homefront in Germany was characterized by high prices and shortages of basic necessities. Popular protests, which first took place in 1915, involved strikes, formal political demonstrations, and, above all, food riots. The majority of women protestors, predominantly working class, but also of the lower middle class, in- sisted on the ability as well as the obligation of authorities at every level to provide for basic needs and thereby prove their legitimacy. By the "hunger winter" of 1916-1917, women who lacked alternatives routinely spent the night in line, often in record freezing temperatures, for a chance to obtain food when shops opened in the morning. Women also directly confronted various authorities in the hope that the military government would recognize their contributions as "soldiers of the home front." But the protestors' hopes were largely unfulfilled and food protests and other demonstrations became increasingly violent and desperate. Many women working in the munitions industries believed that they could stop the war by participating in a general strike; the massive walkout of January 1918 offers in- sight into women's sentiment and the fearful official response. Women partici- pated in great numbers in the Revolution of November 1918, but the final collapse of the government also owed much to their ceaseless protests during the four years of the war. Official concerns about the political consequences of these protests are revealed in thousands of "reports on morale" drawn up by policy and military per- sonnel. The reports vividly recorded the comments and actions of protestors throughout Germany and were used by the government to assess civilian morale. These accounts of protests, which took place in Berlin, include two written by women protestors and five by the police. They cover nearly a four-year period, from February 1915 to November 8,1918, the day before the German Revolution. The date preceding each police report indicates when it was written, often a day or two after the events described.

A. February 17,1915

On the 16th of the month at 5:00 p.m., thou- sands of women and children gathered at the municipal market hall in Andreas Street to buy a few pounds of potatoes. As the sale com- menced, everyone stormed the market stands. The police, who were trying to keep order, were simply overrun and were powerless against the onslaught. A life-threatening press at the stands ensued; each sought to get past the next ... women had their possessions ripped from them and children were trampled on the ground as they pleaded for help .... [W}omen who got away from the crowds with some ten

pounds of potatoes each were bathed in sweat and dropped to their knees from exhaustion be- fore they could continue home.

-Report of OfficerRhein

B. October 17, 1915

After 25 minutes I entered Edison St. in Ober- schoneweide [just outside Berlin} and then turning onto Wilhelm St. came upon a crowd of several thousand men and women, who were loudly howling and pushing the policemen aside. I learned from the sergeant on duty, who had received several head injuries ... that the crowd had already stormed several butter shops

From Bundesarchiv Lichterfelde, Provinz Brandenburg Reposicur 30, Berlin C. Police Presidium, Nrs. 15809, 15814, 15821, and 15851. Contributed and translated by Belinda Davis.

because of the prices .... (S}everal large display windows were shattered, shop doors destroyed, and entire stocks were simply taken .... I was asked to close off the street as the police and of- ficers were completely helpless against the crowd. We cleared the street with fifteen mounted officers .... Various objects such as flower pots were thrown at us.

-Report of Officer Krupphausen

C. October 29,1915

eat be-

The demonstration planned by the women of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) has now ac- tually taken place .... About 250 women gath- ered (before SPD headquarters}. Shortly after 11 :00 a.m., a deputation of six women entered the executive offices, where a meeting of the party executive and board was taking place, to communicate their desires and demands. The women's patience was tested, as it took about an hour before the party executive would speak to them. The women became even more restless as the executive declared that the meeting would not be interrupted for any reason. The deputation was therefore not admitted. This was communicated to the women waiting im- patiently outside. Like a bolt of lightning, they stormed the steps and forced their way into the meeting room shouting abuses C'traitor to the people"). They took the empty seats that re- mained in. the room. Those without seats blocked the entrance. Now, comrade Haase en- tered and bade the women to wait in the adja- cent room until something definite could be determined in the meeting .... Many women cried out that they could no longer bear their sad existence. Others rebuked the party execu- tive and again called party members traitors to the people ... who no longer cared about the people's needs.

-Report of OfficerSchrott

l1n August, 1914, the government imposed the Prussian state of siege law which limited assemblies in the street, criticism of the state and/or the war effort, and increased censorship and police controls.

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D. 4. (In early February 1917}, despite the state of siege' more than 500 of us [factory workers} marched towards the Britz [suburb of Berlin} municipal office. (Inside the office}, the police were pushed to one side (by the work- ers}. Mayor Schmiedigen and the Bread Com- mission could not get out of the room (as the door was blocked by the workers}. The mem- bers of the City Council had to remain in their seats. The women's delegation pointed out the urgent needs of the people. As ... Schmiedigen tried to insult me with the epithet "representa- tive of the people," many women responded, "we are all representatives of the people." The demonstration of women from Britz was so ef- fective that not only the [local working-class newspapers}, but also Der Volksfreund in Braun- schweig ... reported on it. We also succeeded in obtaining extra bread ration cards and cards for rolls and barley as a substitute for potatoes.

-Account of Martha Balzer

E. July 4, 1917

At today's public market in Viktoria Platz, there was not a single vegetable to be had (due to ex- treme speculation and the holding back of goods by farmers}. The city magistrate is apparently not in a position to provide a substitute for pota- toes. The mood of the populace is therefore ex- tremely agitated. Discussion with totally reasonable women confirms that a portion of the population is now actually suffering from starva- tion.' Many people left the market empty- handed and in small groups headed for the City Hall where they demanded bread and potatoes. Informed by the civil servant that they should get bread where it was sold, a number of women walked down Giirtel Street to the shop of the baker Hans Schwarz ... (where} against the will of the clerk, they forcibly took 30 loaves of bread without paying. A riot arose over this, involving about 150 people, in which the shop's awning

'As a result of food shortages caused by the Allied block- ade, over 750,000 German civilians died of starvation dur- ing the war.

IThe Independent Social Democratic Parry (USPD) was formed in January 1917 by members of the antiwar faction of the Social Democratic Party.

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was damaged .... This episode demonstrates that it is high time that efforts were made to bring in sufficient supplies of fruits and vegetables and to distribute them to the broad masses of the popu- lation whose patience is evidently exhausted.

-Report of OfficerKuhlmann to Van Oppen

F. February 22, 1918

The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany' has worked zealously in secret, partic- ularly among women, to gain support for the mass strike it is planning in the munitions works. The women took part in an outstanding way in the [january 1918 mass}strike itself, as well as in the demonstrations on the streets. Spurred on by the "Independents," the women then let them- selves get carried away in several riots. If the po- litical mass strike has not brought about the successthe Independents had hoped for, they still believe that the strike put real pressure on the government, and created support in the factories for continuing the strike. Here again, the women are playing an important role. At the same time, if agitated women are often the ones leading the strike and street demonstrations, there is also a

large portion of women who have been discour- aged from initiating a new strike because of the arrest and conviction of many under war law [state of seige]. These second period women do not want to know anything more about a new strike and, for the time being, are not interested in street demonstrations either.

-Report of OfficerPalm

G. On November 8, 1918, the revolutionary shop stewards of the Berlin metal shops came together ... in the party headquarters of the USPD to finalize plans for a Berlin general strike and demonstration on November 9, 1918. Various representatives of Berlin work- ing-class youth were also present to advise on the participation of youth .... I belonged to the group that was supposed to go to Knorr- Bremse in Lichtenberg. After the discussion ... we went to Alexanderplatz [a large, public square in Berlin}.... We youth comrades pos- sessed various weapons (for possible use the next dayl Erich Habersaath again showed me how to take a revolver apart, clean it, and load it. At first, some didn't want to give us girls any weapons, because they thought such things weren't for women. But in the end I got my re- volver.

-Account of Lucie Gottschar-Heimburger

138. Kathe Kollwitz Letters and Diaries from World War I Kathe Kollwitz (1867-1945) is one of the most important graphic artists of the first half of the twentieth century. The first woman elected to the Prussian Academy of Arts in 1919, she worked in a variety of mediums: woodcuts, posters, charcoal drawings, engravings, lithographs, and sculpture. Kollwitz's art was imbued with her feminist, socialist, and pacifist political views. She be- came interested in depicting working-class life following her marriage in 1891 to Dr. Karl Kollwitz. Through his practice, she met the industrial workers of Berlin. Her series "The Weavers' Revolt" (1895-1897) consisted of three engrav- ings and lithographs depicting the 1844 revolt of the Silesian weavers. The

From pp. 62-63, 73, 87-90 of The Diary and Letters of Kaethe Kollwitz, edited by Hans Kollwitz, translated by Richard and Clara Winston. Copyright © 1988 by Northeastern University Press. Reprinted by permission.