Page:The Bohemian Review, vol2, 1918.djvu/65



The whole world knows by this time the story of the hundreds of thousands of Czech soldiers who would not fight for Austria and surrendered by companies and regiments to the Serbians and Russians. Out of them grew up the large Czechoslovak army in Russia, and they made possible the formation of the more recent Czechoslovak army in France.

No other nation at war has had such a large percentage of its manhood at one time in prisoner camps. From three to four hundred thousand Czechs alone, not counting the Slovaks, all former Austrian conscripts, could be found in the camps of Siberia, Serbia, the Greek islands, Italy, France, Japan and in the uttermost parts of the earth. If the same percentage were applied to America, it would mean five million men as prisoners.

From their friends at home these men received little news and no reading matter. The Austrian government did not permit Czech newspapers to be sent to the prisoners of war in Russia. Now every Bohemian can read and newspapers are as indispensable to him as they are to the American. Letters that came to this country in the early days of the war from Serbia and Siberia told of many privations which were the lot of the Slav prisoners on account of Serbia’s poverty and Russia’s lack of system. But the constant plaint was: send us something to read.

While sporadic efforts were made in every Bohemian settlement in the United States to satisfy this spiritual hunger of masses more numerous than the entire Bohemian born population of this country, a small organization in Chicago undertook to reach every camp, from France and Italy all the way through Asia to Japan, with Bohemian newspapers and books. The organization is called the “Beseda J. V. Frič”. The total membership is now 43, though most of the work fell upon the shoulders of a very few sacrificing men and women. The organization is a social club, composed of immigrants who in the old country were adherents of the National Socialist Party.

The work of supplying the prisoners with reading matter was taken in hand in March 1915. A report has just been published from which it appears that in three years these few workingmen mailed to prisoners of war over 900,000 copies of Bohemian newspapers, 40,000 books, almanacs and pamphlets, answered thousands of letters and located American relatives of 1600 Czech prisoners. From its limited means the Beseda Frič managed in addition to all this to forward to the prisoners 36 large boxes of clothing and underwear.