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Year Under German Rule. De Jong Children Found Milk a Little Thinner, But School Kept Just the Same in Brussels. Simon De Jong .four, aei-d Ift very neat and and some of the Belgian women gave trim in his brown norfolk suit and smooth white collar, his brown eyes bright with excitement, stood at his father's side last night and told in very rapid Belgian French (which the father graciously translated) what he and his Bister had seen and experienced in Brussels during the year's occupation of that city by the Germans. The sister. Bertha de Jong, aged B, would doubtless have contributed her share of the story, for she Is as bright and good-looking a child as her brother, but she had to take a bath and go to bed. and so could not participate in the interview. The brother and sister are the children of Louis and Marguerite d Jong. The father, of Belgian extraction, is a native of Boston, and lived at 133 street, South Boston; his wife was born in Liege. Bertha was born in Boston and Simon lived here as a very little boy, but for seven years they had been quartered in Brussels, for the father's business took him back and forth between Europe and the Americas. Now brother and sister are at the home of Mr. de Jong's brother, Dr. J. de Jong of 427 Geneva av. Dorchester, having crossed the Atlantic on the Noordam, which left Rotterdam September 27 and reached New York last Wednesday. And It was in that Dorchester home that Simon delivered his rapid-fire comments last evening. When the Germans Came. He and his sister boarded with a family of good means at 161 rue Wayez; both attended the public schools, he Seliool 9, rue Eloix, and she School 10, rue Douvre. So much for cold fact: the rest is the boy's story, put into English. hen the war began we had 16 men m it. Then the Belgian Police took j name of those "'omen, so that they them the could be punished after the war "Mayor Max had warned the j,er-mans not to march through one of the streets in the tough part of the (ly. hut they did. The street there had been torn up before the war. and the paving stones hadn't been laid, so the toughs threw them down from the roofs on the said if they ran out of oil 'they would ' throw vitriol. The ijermans nttu In front. With their arms tied behind them, but the toughs vpjpiiflH the-i.e men "We saw no fighting, but sometimes we saw the aeroplanes, of the Allies and heard the German guns firing at them. Then I was frightened again." Child Life in Brussels. For little boys arid girls, things went on in Brussels much as usual. For the first six weeks of occupation there was on black bread, but afterward white bread came back. The milk, too, was thinned with water to make a limited supply go around, but there was food enough for the little de Jongs, If not for their poorer fellows. But Christmas was very different, although at the schools the children got gifts of clothing and toys sent from America. The children suffered no ill-treatment from the German soldiers. On their way to school they would see soldiers guarding one of the bridges, but these men paid little attention to them. In short, life was very little changed for children. For months Mr. de Jong had been trying through the State Department to have the children sent home, and at last it was arranged. Under the care of a representative of the Ministry they went to Rotterdam. At the frontier the German officials wanted to hold them, but the diplomatic agent showed that they were Americans, and, after some difficulty, they got by. "The Germans searched us all over." teachers in the school, and all went to j said Simon. "They took off all our the war. Only 10 came back to Brussels clothes and looked in our cars, oiw the rest had been killed. Those 10 stayed with the Army, and afterward we had girl teachers. "At first everybody thought the Belgians would win. It was vacation then, but when the principals knew the Germans were coming to Brussels they thought it would be better to have the children in school, so they put up notices and we went to school. "The day the Germans came we were all afraid and went into the cellar. Nobody was hurt where we were, but a woman from Liege who had been made crazy, was at the house for several hours. She said her children had been killed by the Germans and her husband buried alive. "The German soldiers wanted food, mouths and our nostrils to see that we weren't carrying any letters. I had the address of a friend on a scrap of paper, for I was going to write to him, but they took that away. They even hunted through sister's hair for a message." The boy had expected that he was to meet his parents at Rotterdam and protested at first against going on the steamer. Under the captain's care, however, he and Bertha fared very well, and the only excitement was the customary stopping of the steamer by a British warship and once the sight of a submarine's periscope through a spyglass. Another sister, Anna de Jong, aged 3. was taken from Belgium to England early in the year and is now with Mr. de Jong's brother-in-law.

Itinerary edit

• Departure: Rotterdam on September 27, 1915 and reached New York last Wednesday.
• Arrival: Manhattan on October 9, 1915 (last Wednesday counting from October 11, 1915)

Licensing edit

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