RETURN OF THE SURVIVORS

Carrière Vandevelde - chantier de taille

 

Arthur D. returned from Germany on 7 June 1917. Having suffered an atrocious lack of food, he suffered from persistent gastroenteritis while his sight was affected by acute conjunctivitis. He was unable to work for 8 months. 

Louis C. had leg ulcers, owing to severe frostbite caused by working outside in the middle of winter.

Victor B. had his hand crushed between 2 blocks of stone at the Mulsheim camp (Westphalia). After being treated for 2 and a half months in the camp clinic he was then only capable of carrying out light duties in the porphyry quarries, where he had worked as a quarryman for several years.

Joséphine H.’s husband returned from Germany suffering from a mental disorder. The scars on his face were the result of being violently beaten several times by the guards, who kicked him and hit him around the head with their rifle butts. He suffered from violent headaches. This affected his mind and he had to be admitted to an asylum in Tournai. He died there on 30 June 1922.

Lessinois devant les baraques Albert, 1919

Other stories