Had to leave school on Thursday owing to neuralgia and headache. The pain was unbearable, went to dentist who said that two grinders were at war in my jaw. So he pulled one. Had a lot of pain, but went nevertheless to Mr. and Mrs. Neeson’s concert at the Clarence Hall. It was most enjoyable. Mrs. Neeson played Debussy’s ‘Children’s Corner’ (which I heard Cortot play in Dublin) Mussorgsky’s ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’, and Schumann’s ‘Twelve Symphonic Poems’. Thought the first two are strikingly modern, one can delight in a new fantastic atmosphere which they create. Mr. Neeson sang, amongst others, Mussorgsky’s ‘To the Dnieper’ and ‘Field-Marshall Death’, two wonderfully powerful songs. Got the ´flu and had to stay in bed on Friday. Such a catastrophe, just when my music exam. is approaching. Stayed inside and could do no work on Saturday.
On Sunday Páp gave me an account of his life in the camp. ((Aloys Fleischmann senior was taken into custory on 4 Jan 1916 and interned in Oldcastle Co. Meath with hundreds of other German civilians who had been living in Ireland when the first world war began. All were transferred to camps on the Isle of Man in May 1918. Fleischmann was deported from there to Germany in Oct 1919 and not allowed back to Ireland until Sep 1920. The account given to his son probably refers to the camp on the Isle of Man camp rather than to that of Oldcastle.)) It was appalling. And then people were saying here that they wished they were in his boots, and could get free from the cares of war-time life by 5 years quiet seclusion! Páp’s one prayer was that he should not go mad, and become like the poor lunatics who sat at mess and actually lived with the other prisoners! 350 men were partitioned in each court, having plank beds, wearing rags, and getting loathsome food which they tried to swallow in gulps to prevent nausea. A few times he was nearly strangled by madmen. Grafs [counts] and beggars, priests and lunatics were all mixed together. During the hols. I must get him to give a more detailed account, and take notes. His diary he had to burn or it would have been taken by the authorities when he was freed. It must have been a wonderful possession, better than the ‘Jail Journal’ [by John Mitchel] because more real and startling.
[Newspaper cutting inserted:]Hindenburg’s Challenge to the World.
President von Hindenburg has launched an appeal of the German nation to the world to open the archives of all countries to establish the full truth of the origin of the world war. ‘We have published the secret documents of our past to establish the truth of the causes and beginning of the war. We expect an open answer from the whole world to this, our testimony,’ said the President in his appeal.
