Page:Diary of a Prisoner in World War I by Josef Šrámek.pdf/124

 exhausted. "What will it be like when we are on the front?" Šrámek wonders. His question is answered in only a matter of days, and what has seemed impossible up to this point is now minor compared with what is to come.

One of the most intriguing aspects of this young soldier's diary is his succinct, often unemotional presentation. "Serbs killed our corporal when he was on patrol," he says in one entry, followed by, "Beautiful weather. Jupa went shopping." Most of his entries are short, undoubtedly of necessity, yet he does occasionally philosophize. Even then, his words are brief: "Miraculously, I survived," he says one day, and, "It is really strange that I have been escaping an injury or death so far," on another. In a much later entry, he allows, "We are killing our best times here—what I could experience at home if there were not that damned war." Nothing can make him believe in what he is doing.

Barely three months after his enlistment, Šrámek is captured by the Serbs and spends the rest of the war as a prisoner. His diary offers chilling details about his ongoing imprisonment: stretches of three, four, and even six days without food; no shoes or appropriate clothing in the freezing temperatures; deadly fevers; forced work details; forced marches; and violent treatment at the hands of his captors.