My table was placed in the centre of the cell. We had covered it with paper napkins, and had succeeded in obtaining some canned meat. At that time this was a marvelous accomplishment, believe me.
The dinner was a very joyful one. Toasts were proposed and congratulatory speeches were made. The following afternoon I was granted leave to go to the city. For the first time, after twelve months’ incarceration, I was allowed to walk the streets! It was late in May. The vegetation was luxuriant and for the first time in a year I enjoyed the liberty of walking among the verdant foliage and flowerbeds of the square adjoining the prison. Never before had nature appeared so wonderfully beautiful. I was tempted to smile even at the Germans who walked about the streets.
Two hours later I returned to the jail, and learned that my departure, which had been fixed for the next day, would be delayed owing to the fact–so I was told–that a certain document had not yet been signed by the high command. It was represented to me that the signing of this document was a mere formality, and my release was a thing decided and assured. I was to be allowed to leave on the following Wednesday.
On the Tuesday, I was ready to start. My baggage was packed. Then I was advised once more that the missing document had not yet arrived; that I must wait a few days longer. Of course, I was very much distressed at this repeated delay, but I tried to be patient through the ensuing two weeks, which appeared centuries to me.
One day I was called into the office of the jail. Major Schachian had come to explain that the Kommandantur in Berlin had really decided to give me my liberty, to allow me to go back to my family in Belgium, and particularly to be near my wife, who had been ailing for six months–but a superior authority had now over-ridden this decision.
One can conceive my disappointment. I remarked to that officer that being a physician I was being detained contrary to international laws; that, moreover, I had on several previous occasions received assurances from the military authorities in Antwerp that I should not be molested; that I had practised my profession, not only in a hospital, before the fall of Antwerp, but since that date among the civil population of Capellen. The officer did not attempt to deny all this, but he said: “You practised medicine for charity; you did not practise it regularly.”