No, your eyes do not deceive you, for indeed the where Alexandra Palace once played host to more than 3000
overseas civilians, interned there between 1915 and
1919. It is described by the book’s author as ‘a WW1 concentration camp’ and that is really what it was. We their imprison-
are told that the park around the Palace was itself
surrounded by belts of barbed wire. There were watch
towers, and ‘Tommies armed with fixed bayonets’
patrolled between the wires.
The more you get into this book, a combination of proceeds providing some small income for the archive photographs, contemporary paintings by internee George Kenner, letters from other internees and poems by the author, the more incredible it all seems. Although the internees had done nothing wrong, had not even said that they supported the Kaiser or his generals, they were rounded up, as were based chiefly on her study of the above, Maggie Butt some 39,000 other boys and men between the ages of seeks to put into words the feelings of the internees, 17 and 55 sent to other internment camps around the dramatising and so bringing alive their situation. So, country. So, we are told that:
The bulk of the internees were quiet family men, of
good character [most of whom had English wives]. Many of them had come to England, (or their fathers had) to escape military service or the military atmosphere in Germany. They had looked upon England as a land of justice and freedom, and were genuinely puzzled and oppressed by the sense of the personal injustice that was now their lot.
Once inside the Palace, the 3000 internees were bound smoked herring, cakes, cheese, ham, good butter. But by common rules concerning their imprisonment, the by 1917: communications they might have with the outside world and the visits they were allowed from friends or … family. Owing perhaps to the Edwardian class-divided with swedes and turnips and salt herrings. society of pre-war days they were however accommodated in three distinct groupings. The labouring classes slept in the Great Hall, the middle classes in the the worms were harmless, we must eat them. Skating Rink, and the aristocracy had quarters in the Tower. The latter were supplied not just with beds but
also with tables at which to work and eat. The poorer
men, it is said, earned money as their servants. We are
told of persons from within each of the groups:
x Benny Csech, regarded as a labourer, was a tailor with an English wife and two daughters. There
were also hairdressers, barbers, bootmakers, bakers,
cooks, waiters and the like.
x Those regarded as middle class ranged from stock-
brokers and bankers to artists and teachers. x Rudolf Sauter, son of the artist George Sauter and himself a painter and writer, was educated at
Harrow School. He was housed with the aristocracy.
Areas were established
craftsmen could
work despite
ment: a tailor’s
shop, a watch-
maker’s, a toy
factory, barbers, kitchens, allotments and so on. Some
output was sold by the League of Friends, the
inmates. Throughout this little book (62 pages including notes) the eye witness accounts of life in the camp, presented by a sample of letters, sit well with the photographs and paintings. Through her own poems,
we hear of the frustrations of daily lives no longer lived in freedom or allowing choice; of the heartbreak
of undeserved separation from family and friends:
A thousand iron beds in regimented rows, each with straw mattress, pillow, blanket, and a man, entrapped, enwrapped with fear of how his wife and kids will live.
The menu available to the men declined as the years went by: in 1915 there was corned beef, pickled or
Rice, rice, rice, three times a day,
Biscuits are broken and full of worms and maggots. We sent some for analysis but they said
the worms were harmless, we must eat them.
There was suffering, and of course there was also
death, though thankfully only on a small scale. Most
unfairly, a number of internees failed to survive their time at the Pally.
This book is a fascinating ‘taster’ of a lost world –
possibly unknown to most at the time and to the vast
majority of us today, as we reflect on Britain’s part in
the Great War.
John Pearson is viceͲchair of SOF trustees.