GERMAN P.o.W.s
Sum,—How much longer is public conscience going to tolerate the use of slave-labour in this country? We hear plenty today, and rightly, about the inhumanity and wanton disregard of personal freedom and liberty when hordes of Europeans were ruthlessly subjected to conditions of slavery in Nazi Germany. Does not our retention of German prisoneis of war for more than a year after the cessation of hostilities in Europe savour of those despicable methods which so justly earned our condemna- tion? In his illuminating Marginal Comment giving us the " atmosphere " of the Court of Nuremberg, Mr. Harold Nicolson feels that this trial is the calm assessment and affirmation of profound human values. Surely our treatment of German P.o.W.s is a direct denial of just those profound human values which we are affirming at Nuremberg.
Having spent four years in prison camps in Germany, I feel that I am in some small measure justified in this conscience-pricking. Only, those who have experienced the bitterness of frustration and despair and the heart-sickness of deferred hope know the agony of mind and soul (not to mention physical privations) which are the lot of the P.o.W., whose existence has been well described as a "living death." For those who, having shared these experiences, could refrain from lifting up their voices in protest against our present inhumanity, I feel the utmost pity that 'they should have become so scarred in mind and outlook. For those who have no first-hand knowledge of modern slavery in exile and who could callously condemn fellow humans to this bondage, I fervently pray in the words of our Lord: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."—Yours faithfully, JOHN M. STEWART. 297 Springburn Road, Glasgow, N.
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