LIFE AT AHMADNAGAR
Approximately 2,000 German nationals within the British Indian Empire appeared in September at the Deccan town of Ahmadnagar. Hundreds of them had been transferred from the major cities, including several hundred German Jews from the city of Bombay.59 Here was a great unknown mass of Germans, many of them already in the Intelligence files of the Indian Government. Further investigations had to be held regarding these men from all walks of life, particularly those in India for profoundly political reasons.
Relatively soon at Ahmadnagar a division into camps A and B was initiated for the German internees. Half the men were encamped in Camp B, also known as the Nazi Camp, while the „other half were given better treatment, … and were called A-Class.“ In Camp-A „they paid for their board, at least the first few months of the war.“60 Some of the missionaries were also assigned to Camp-A, but as „a paying guest of His Majesty.“61 The Gossner Mission monthly indicated to its readers that Johannes Stosch could be reached at the Internment Camp A under Nr. 6239.62 The general address given for the Gossner men was the Hostile Aliens Internment Camp, Ahmadnagar, British India.63
The distinction of separating the German nationals as paying and non-paying guests developed through quasi-political reasons. The division between anti-Nazi and Nazi lines had its beginnings in the two weeks when the large German community of businessmen and Jewish refugees from Bombay were at first at the Deolali Cantonment near Nasik.64 The British camp commandant of Deolali needed „two responsi ble people for the crowd, … (so as) to get some social action. He arranged for two parties, the Nazi party and the anti-Nazi or non-Nazi party, to select leaders for each group.“65 Dr. Oskar Gans, the professor for dermatology and a German Jew who fled Germany in 1934, was elected to represent the large Jewish and anti-Nazi community. 66 For the German nationals loyal to the Third Reich and the Nazi Party, Eugen Reiss, representative of the German electrical concern Siemens, was chosen as the spokesman. The two men, though of markedly different schools of thought, through a pre-war friendship in Bombay made a good working relationship at Deolali and for a while too at Ahmadnagar.67
The Nazi Party khans attempted to dictate the policy in the Ahmadnagar Camp-B. Their platform had one design;
All Nazis, declared Nazis, stayed in Wing B where they didn’t pay anything and thereby they were thinking of inflicting a certain amount of financial loss onto the British Government. So in actual fact it was ridiculous.68
It was regarded „as a sign by the Nazis as cooperating with the British Government to pay three Rupees a day for one’s keep or one’s food.“69
Some of the German Protestant missionaries were Wing A, where you had to pay for the comfort;“70
. . . they still had funds available and they would have had to be paid by their own boards. So they could afford this very small amount. … Bombay people, for instance, preferred to go into Wing-A, those who had earned large salaries.71
„The Roman Catholics decided that it was the proper thing for them“ to go into Camp-B. „The idea was that not all Germans could go into Wing A; it was a sign of solidarity with the poor ones, with the lesser paid ones.“72 In any case, prior to the process of discrimination and classification by the British authorities, the German nationals were discriminating among themselves. It became an issue with increasing meaning.
Once space became available at Ahmadnagar, in Camp-A the Jewish refugees and the Protestant missionaries were able to move from the tents into the barracks, constructed of „large solid stone buildings.“73 At this stage the missionaries approached the commandant in the hopes of getting all or most of their group into one barrack. All 38 men associated with Protestant Missions could not be housed together, since „the missionaries filled one whole wing of a barrack containing about 30 beds.“74 In the opinion of one Breklum missionary, experiencing seven camps during the war, Ahmadnagar „was the best maintained camp, a camp without bugs. And that is saying a lot for India.“75
The 38 missionaries became a part of an unique experience, living and working together. It gave them a purpose in a time of separation from their mission labours and the love of their families and friends. Along with the German Basel missionaries, „there were also the Leipzig men, the Breklum men – with the (future) Bishop Heinrich Meyer, and the Gossner men.“ 76 The one Quaker missionary admitted: „Actually I met more German missionaries in the first camp to which I was taken in Ahmadnagar.“ 77 In these weeks and months the brethren learned much in sharing their experiences and in the studies together. One of the joyful rituals for the younger men in the missionary barrack was the invitation which Stosch, a man with decades of foreign service, extended to join him for a cup of tea and a discussion about the church and mission aims in India.78
One of the more important course of things was the time devoted to the study of the Bible and theology. Some were fortunate enough to have brought an adequate supply of books with them.79 At Ahmadnagar, as in most ensuing camps, a „theological working group was organized.“80 The group enhanced sound study and research.81 Johannes Daub recalls the time as a most meaningful pursuit and found the New Testament course offered by Heinrich Meyer as extremely rewarding; his excellent knowledge of the Greek language go alone was an inspiration.82 Also there were the responsibilities for Sunday morning worship and vespers, and Sunday for Sunday enough brethren had to lead these services.
Life at the internment camp began early, for „there was a roll call every morning at 7:00 A.M.“83 The roll call could vary in length according to the intention of the commandant. On occasions it could last for over two hours, and on one such day „the oldest man in Ahmadnagar (who) was 72 years“ fainted.84 „Of course all the Germans who were there sought to conduct themselves properly,“ but if someone attempted to escape, everyone had to line up once again.85 Helmuth Borutta remembers one such instance, when „the commandant said: ‚He didn’t escape; he is somewhere in the camp. They looked for him in the camp, but to no avail. They found him though on a freight train … on the way to Bombay.“86
From the outset there was some unrest at Ahmadnagar and there were adjustments of all sorts to be made. Incidents, not in the framework of the camp regulations, were also possible among these specialized and able men, under the confinement and with so much time on their hands. In the beginning one specific incident gave the missionaries unnecessary trouble. It seems that near their barrack the camp guards discovered that the barbed wire fence had been cut and a missionary was made responsible for the crime. The court scene was the dining hall, when two British officers, standing on a table, acted as the prosecutors. Later it was discovered that the supposed spot was the beginning of one roll and the end of another roll of barbed wire. The culinary tastes and needs of the internees increased as their freedom and mobility were restricted. Only five weeks at Ahmadnagar, Oskar Gans noted:
The food was quite all right in the beginning. . . . The contractor was a Muslim. You know, they used to be in this sort of business. . . . But very soon he got too keen to make a profit. And the Nazi Germans then complained. They wouldn’t eat that anymore. They wanted to get the materials so that they could prepare the food themselves. They had several cooks, and from then on the food was very, very good.88
Expressing the general sentiment of the camp, the food was one positive phase of the life behind the camp fences. It provided as well working possibilities for some internees. Not all the chores of the kitchen were of a specialized nature; some were the menial tasks found in any camp, and the missionary was not exempted. The Baseler Hermann Palm remembered how he was
. . . appointed in the camp then to the department of potato peelers. That was naturally a very useful form of work, namely that one could also eat an extra potato, . . . although we never were exactly hungry. . . . One welcomed the little extra one had, even if one could eat potatoes. 89
A correspondence between the German men in camp and their wives in freedom was permitted to a limited extent. 90 Also, „In Service of Prisoners of War,“91 the missionary could receive packages from his wife on the mission station. Home-baked goods were a reminder of his wife’s baking and they helped offset some hunger. Yet again for security reasons these items „were often in fact crushed into crumbs. There was naturally nothing in them, though they suspected that there may be some news hidden in the baked goods.“92
Lest one believe that all was favourable and the „food in the camp is good,“93 the continued separation of the missionaries from their families became the greatest burden for all. Adolf Streckeisen’s letter of October 31st, 1939, to Alfons Koechlin in Basel offers this insight:
I have good news for all our Mission personnel. In Udipi a little Hans Peter Reichenbacher was born, who I believe arrived on the 21st. Mother and child are doing well. Lipp is now in camp. Bier had some kind of malaria, Friso (Melzer) and Palm some dysentery, but all appear to be well.94
Furthermore, there were the responsibilities of caring for the sanitary facilities. At Ahmadnagar the communal toilets, known as latrines in India, „had to be cleaned up, and so on.“95 Here too the missionary had to assist in this pressing chore of camp life.
There was also the general concern for the maintenance of the camp premises. This assignment Palm described in part;
Also we frequently had to clean out the weeds from the barrack grounds with small kitchen knives. Essentially that was a form of work – how should I express it – something which would rate us down. One had to kneel there in the sun and pry the grass out with a knife. That I found very unpleasant.96
Among the hundreds of German professional and businessmen, there were many Jewish doctors and dentists able to care for the internees. No missionary had these qualifications at that time, though each had received a basic training in the medical and dental sciences before his departure for India. At Ahmandnagar Gans carried on his practice for both groups – the non-Nazis and the Nazis – though they „were separated by the British into different camps, into different barracks. And so I was in one barrack, but it didn’t prevent the Nazis, when they were ill, from consulting me.“97 Even with the knowledge of the Third Reich’s atrocities, Gans had a professional obligation; „I didn’t mind it; a patient is a patient.“98 „There was a hospital at the disposal of the internees“99 and the doctors in internment.
The large internment camp with its Wings A and B provided few luxuries in comparison to the favourable conditions of the family parole camps later in the war. Taking part in one sport or the other was a healthy consolation to the pressures. The Breklum missionary Reimer Speck wrote home: „I have become the sport attendant and every day I exercise in physical training with a group of 50 men for half an hour.“100
Certain luxuries of life were taken from the internees obviously on account of the war. Gäbler remembered, „We had no possibility to hear the radio; we had no films. … It was a dull time unless you studied books, etc.“101 Not only was there the ‚black-out‘ of the news through the papers and the wireless, but the censors managed to remove a considerable portion of the letters between the men and their wives. The British censors „used to strike out so much of the news with India ink or something similar.“102 Gans recalls that on one occasion, „I sent a letter and I enclosed a sketch of the barracks – just the roof, some straight lines and the windows. And the censor gave it back to me, saying: ‚It is not allowed to send out any plans of the camp‘.“103
What the censors were able to restrict from flowing in and out of the camp, was scarcely a deterrent for the amateur artist. Portraits, sketches, etchings and the like blossomed as the days and weeks dragged on. A favorite etching used by the internees for the Christmas season card was the depiction of their barrack interior. A total of 24 missions personnel, of the original 38 interned, celebrated Christmas 1939 at Ahmadnagar. For most of these younger missionaries, separated already four months, it was a Season with mixed feelings.104
Life at the internment Camp-A did provide opportunities to make use of one’s money, that is if one had enough. From his limited funds the missionary could have his washing done, purchase an occasional cigar, buy some fruit and other extras.105 J.Z. Hodge, in his report on The War And The N.C.C., discussed the matter of allowances, though it is not certain whether this statement applied to the first or the second Ahmadnagar internment period. He wrote that the German missionaries did receive
… ordinary soldiers rations, equivalent to Rs.1-8-0 a day, an additional monthly allowance of Rs. 20 and an extra daily allowance of 3½ annas – roughly Rs. 70 a month.106
On the other hand Streckeisen appeared to be uncertain regarding his Basel brethren’s allowances; „I learn that in the Camp they have no expenses except pocket expenses, perhaps Rs. 30 per month.“107 From missionary life of a ‚minimum-existence‘, managing on 60% or less of their salaries and with monetary shortages unparalleled in mission work, the camp allowances were as a windfall for many interned.
This war which most of the world did not desire held catastrophic consequences for these missions people.108 They found themselves divorced from their ‚call‘ to serve in the Indian church, separated from their families and held in a camp as enemy nationals. Quite naturally their thoughts centered on the uncertainty of a further work in India, on the continuing captivity (Gefangenschaft) at Ahmadnagar and on the welfare of their families. And increasingly the internment would take on political colours for these missionaries, particularly as civil ‚prisoners of war‘. The life at Ahmadnagar portrayed a political climate as well, where a Nazi ideology and a growing pride in the Third Reich persisted, while the British authorities sought to penetrate the depth of the missionaries‘ sympathies.