Item 21 - Account of a visit to Germany, by Emmeline Pethick-Lawrence

3 single sheets

(Carbon copy, with a handwritten alteration. Undated.)

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Transcript

On Sunday October 5th, the German Parliament House in Berlin was filled to overflowing with a great gathering of people, who met to celebrate the memory of the friends of peace in all lands, and especially of those who had devoted themselves in life and in death to the furtherance of international understanding and friendship.

The speakers were Dr. Frithjof Nansen (Norway) Senator Henri La Fontaine (Belgium) Senator Ferdinand Buisson (France) Herr Paul Loebe (Leader of the German Social Democratic Party and late President of the Reichstag) and myself as representative of England and also of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom which is now established in 33 countries. Every speech was received with great enthusiasm and ardent desire for Peace permeated the spirit of the meeting.

There is a great movement of reconciliation growing rapidly between the German and French women and also between the youth of both countries. The German women have collected money to build a Reconciliation House in the North of France which will consist of a library, public halls, and club rooms. The German Youth Movement has arranged with the inhabitants of the devastated areas to send its qualified members in large numbers to rebuild with their own hands the houses of the peasant land owners. The French working women of Paris have received 300 children from the Ruhr into their own homes. A procession of French children marched through the streets carrying little banners inscribed “German children and French children are brothers and sisters” and the German children were met thus at the station loaded with flowers and gifts and brought home in loving triumph. Those women whose homes were too small and overcrowded to take an adopted child, give or collect 30 francs a month for the support of some particular child in the Ruhr with whom a correspondence is carried on, and many hundreds of children in the distressed areas are supported in this way. Not the money only, but gifts of clothing and good things find their way by post to the adopted little ones.

I addressed a great meeting of one thousand young men and women in Berlin organised by the German Youth Movement for Democracy and Worldwide brotherhood and peace. A young man told the story of how he had walked through France (for as he had no money he could not travel in any other way) to attend the recent International Peace Conference organised by the French Youth Movement. As he was at last, after many days, nearing the place of meeting he was met by an old French peasant woman, of whom he enquired the way. “Are you going to the young people’s Peace Conference” she asked. He pointed to his badge. “Over there” said the old woman solemnly pointing to a military burial ground in the distance, “lie my three sons.” “Over there” replied the young German student, “lie my three brothers.”

The old woman bent down and gathered some earth in the palm of her hand. Showing the dust to him and touching it, she said slowly, “Earth! The same earth covers my three sons and your three brothers,” then lifting herself and pointing upward she added, “Heaven—the same heaven is over us all.”

In company with Marcelle Capy (French) and Gertrud Baer (German) I went from town to town speaking about International Brotherhood. Magdeburg is a large town famed for its iron and steel industry two hours by express train from Berlin. There we met an audience of over three thousand men and women. They listened in intense silence with occasional bursts of applause, and when the meeting was over many of the audience walked with us to our train and gave us a send off with cheers.

Frankfurt, Heidelburg, Rastadt, Karlsruhe, Freiburg, Offenburg, Schopfheim, Stuttgart, Goppingen, Dresden were amongst the towns visited, and there were many more invitations that could not be accepted. Everywhere we found the same eager response.

The German and French people are far more deeply concerned with the subject of peace than we in England are. Listening to their impassioned words I realised that speaking comparatively we know little in England of the miseries and devastations, physical and moral—of war.

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A few typing errors have been silently corrected.

{1} i.e. ‘had’.

This description was created by A. C. Green in 2020.