ases did not even desire it. He should not
therefore be treated as a prisoner of war.
Belligerent States! We call upon you to exchange all your
civilians now interned.... This exchange must naturally be
effected under certain conditions to be established. Each State
must bind itself not to employ the liberated civilians for
war-work; just as was arranged in the case of military prisoners
who have been repatriated or sent to neutral countries. With
these conditions, no belligerent should refuse to liberate the
civilians so unjustly imprisoned.
Honour will be theirs who act upon this appeal....
The signatories to this appeal are G. Wagniere (Editor of the _Journal
de Geneve_), Dr. A. Forel (Professor at Zurich University), Ed. Secretan
(National Councillor), Benjamin Vallotton, Charles Baudouin (Professor
at the Institut J. J. Rousseau), Ch. Bernard, P. Seidel (Professor at
the Cantonal Technical College, Zuerich), A. de Morsier, Ph. Dunant
(Lawyer of Geneva), Paul Moriand (Professor of Medicine at Geneva), and
MM. Blonde and Arcos.
The Swiss Red Cross has also appealed for the release of all interned
civilians.
From this side the following private appeal on behalf of all prisoners
has been addressed to the Red Cross at Cologne:
I feel it incumbent upon me ... to draw your attention to the
acute disappointment that is being caused among the prisoners in
all the camps, and almost equally among their friends outside,
by the delay in repatriation. Every phase in the long series of
public discussions and official negotiations, every hitch, and
every hesitation, has been followed with painful anxiety by
those of us who know what it means for all these thousands of
victims languishing in confinement, and you may be sure, with
much more intensely painful anxiety by the victims themselves,
whose ears are pathetically strained to catch the feeblest echo
of any rumour from the outside world that brings them the
slightest hint of release. For months these poor fellows had
been continually alternating between hope and despair, when the
news of the Hague meeting seemed for large numbers to bring them
definitely, at long last, within measurable distance of the
reality. Knowing therefore as you do, equally well with us, the
mental condition of these men, and the terribly demoralising
effect of long internment, ev
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