The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel 41. WOMEN AGAINST THE GESTAPO ON THE DAY of my arrival in Belgrade, after four hours' severe questioning, having been given nothing at all to eat or drink since the previous afternoon, I was so tired that I was afraid I might make . slip. I therefore became silent and pretended to be fainting. Two Gestapo detectives were ordered to take me to prison. I was allowed to take absolutely nothing with me. I realized that it was considered a waste of trouble even to transport my small bag I was not expected to need anything for long. The detectives close against my shoulders, I was hurried down the Terrazie, across the street, under a deep archway, through a small court and to an iron door in a high blank wall. A group of anxious women stood there, some weeping. The detectives roughly elbowed them aside and knocked loudly A key rattled, bolts were drawn, and the door swung narrowly open I was pushed through, the detectives following. The women surged forward and made desperate efforts to peep inside. The guard, revolver on hip, rifle on shoulder, barked at them angrily, slammed and relocked the door. I was in the infamous Gestapo prison of Belgrade. We hurried across the narrow, roughly cobbled yard where prisoners were languidly working in the hot sun. Some looked up from their desultory sweeping to give me little secret nods of courage. Through a large door, up some stone steps, along a short stone passage, through another iron door and into a small office. It contained two beds against one wall, some steel filing cabinets, a wash basin, and in the middle a desk at which sat the chief warder, Richter One of the detectives signed the huge book. Then both departed. Surlily businesslike while the detectives were there, the instant the) were gone the chief began screaming at me, to spell my name, to empty my pockets. "English, heh? English, the miserable cowards," etc. "American too, please remember, and entitled to be treated as al internee," I said peacefully. This drove him into a frenzy. "Americans and English-the b s, what did they think they could ever accomplish against Germany!" he yelled. It is hard to believe, but never was an opportunity allowed to pass without such a screaming denunciation. It was designed, apparently, to condition prisoners for the horrors of that prison. It was obvious to me at once that the man was a psychopathic case-as proved to be true. His assistant, a wretched degenerate boy called Honig, sycophantically applauded his clever cracks. The show proving a flop, Honig led me out, unlocked a door between the office and the front door of the prison, and put me into the cell which I was to occupy-but for one interval in the condemned cell-for over two months. It was about fifteen feet by twenty and had two small windows high up, heavily barred, with wooden screens fastened outside in such a way that little light or air could enter. On one side there were two narrow slatted cots (later removed) and on the other loose straw covered with blankets in all colors and conditions of raggedness. A string stretched across a corner was hung with gray towels. There were a few crooked nails for coats, a very large pail with a lid. That was all. This cell was the only one between the office and the entrance to the prison. Everyone entering or leaving had to pass our door. Through a space below the wooden screens we had a small but clear view of the yard and the single gate. There was a stovepipe hole in the wall between our cell and the office. Hence we could see or hear everything that went on in that prison except in the cellar and on the upper floors. All the other cells in the prison were remote and calm by comparison. In the heat and the foul air it was our constant fight to keep the door open to prevent the women from fainting wholesale. When we were not to see or be seen by new arrivals, the guard would slam the door. But there was still a peephole with a tin slide. I found a way of closing this from the inside upon occasion, and snapping it open again when it was noticed by the bellowing guard. When I was shoved in that day, fourteen women, almost all Serbs, were sitting about in utter dejection, some crying softly. In a dark corner crouched Tatiana Alboff, a Russian woman of aristocratic connections whom I had known as secretary to the Daily Mail correspondent, Terence Atherton. She made signs to me not to recognize her. A charming elderly woman rose and welcomed me. She was Lidia, well known and popular in Belgrade. Her husband was also in the prison; they had no idea why. They had been there, like several others, for almost three months without the slightest explanation and without once being questioned. All the women were introduced to me with ceremony but by their first names since, for understandable reasons, they were reluctant to have their last names known. I heard the life story of each in turn. The thing that struck me first was the careful standard of good manners that was maintained in the cell. It reminded me of the old tales about Queen Marie Antoinette in the Bastille during the French Revolution. However debased the behavior of the "masterfolk" guards, however horrible the conditions of the prison, the women never once indulged in any loud quarreling, not one scene of violence. This in spite of the mixture of classes and types. Often I wondered how anyone could call the Serbs "primitive" or "uncouth." The Serbian women were very much the opposite: calm, intensely warmhearted, uncowed and firm in the face of death. We had weaklings, we had cowards, we had the most contemptible informers. But they were Russians-"White" Russians who eagerly proclaimed themselves to all who would listen as haters of the present Russian regime and devoted friends of the Nazis. The trial-by-fire of the prison experience tested every fiber of racial and personal character. Through this trial the Serbian women, among whom must be included the Sephardic Jewesses of long local descent, emerged magnificently. There were only two exceptions: one the wife of a leading Belgrade banker, a one-time great beauty so spoiled by wealth that she was actually unable to comb her own hair. She was in prison for only ten days, her offense being her "impertinence" in asking at her town house, requisitioned by the Germans, for some linen to take to her country house. She wept solidly for those ten days at the "disgrace" of being in prison. The rest of us considered it, as it was, a great honor. The second exception was a Belgrade widow of thirty whose husband had fought for the Communists in Spain. Her daughter of thirteen, we heard, in the absence of her mother had become unmanageable and was running wild in the streets. This handsome woman, looking little more than a girl, had to be carried to her execution screaming the name of her child-the wayward child she was leaving alone in a terrible world. The other women who died walked firmly and silently to their death before the guns. Previous Chapter | Content | Next Chapter The Serbs Chose War, Ruth Mitchel