Existing comment:
Stout describes first entering the Siegen mines, which concealed not only art, but also people:
"The tunnel -- an old mine shaft -- was about six feet wide and eight feet high ... We walked more than a quarter mile... through that passage ... in a path not more than a foot and a half. The rest was compressed humanity. They stood, they say on branches and on stones. They lay on cots or stretchers. This was the entire population of the city, all that could not get away...
"We were the first Americans they had seen. They had no doubt been told that we were savages.... Children were snatched out of our path. And ahead of us went the fearful word, halfway between sound and whisper -- 'Amerikaner.' " |