Page - 816 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

816 Camps hygienic facilities’ that they had not known before. Coexistence also made sense, since it contributed ‘to a deepening of the understanding of the individual peoples of the state for each other and the elevation of community spirit’.1918 From 1916 at the latest, the coexistence became an existence of one against the other. The refugees and, to an even greater extent, the internees were not seen as compatriots, but in view of the rapidly deteriorating conditions instead as ‘rivals in the daily struggle to survive’. The food shortages were reduced to the simple formula that the refugees were consuming everything and that, for this reason, nothing remained for the locals.1919 Nevertheless, in 1917 the Reichsrat deputy Alcide Degasperi believed that at least the Ministry of the Interior had done everything possible for the refugees and ‘outcasts’ had ultimately become ‘citizens’. They had also encountered a lot of love, he continued, in equal measure in Bohemia, Moravia, Upper Austria, Lower Austria and Styria.1920 Ultimately, however, the refugees had been treated like objects and not like human beings : ‘They were evacuated, ordered to march, searched, provisioned [and] quartered in barracks, as though they did not have their own will [and] as though they did not have any rights.’ Life in the camps could not have been more varied. The barracks differed in size. In Wagna, the standardised temporary buildings housed 400 refugees. In Braunau, the wooden huts measuring 40 x 10 m were designed for 100 people. Both cases were the norm. For a period of time, 600 people were stuffed into the hall-like barracks, how- ever, and up to 170 in the smaller ones.1921 The rooms were divided up into larger units, which were in turn subdivided into compartments for individual families. The very simple quarters were supplemented with stoves in the central aisles, baths and toilets. Beds were mostly iron military beds with straw mattresses laid on them. There were no cupboards. Possessions were stored in suitcases or baskets or hung from the beams. Two-thirds of the occupants comprised women, youths and children, whilst one-third consisted of middle-aged and old men.1922 The inadequacies generally balanced each other out. The barracks were shabby, the sanitary conditions left a lot to be desired and were sometimes catastrophic, whilst communication was a problem and already caused difficulties wherever the camp leadership did not understand the language of the occupants (and vice versa). There were primary school lessons but no secondary education. Secondary schools at which pupils could also take their school-leaving examinations were established only for the refugees living in the large cities and gen- erally as a result of individual initiative. After that, however, the young men were expected to join up. Bit by bit, the camps of course changed, attempts were made to plant greenery in them, school, sanitary and hospital barracks were added, whilst churches and nurseries were built. At the end of 1915, 1,600 children attended the Istrian school in Wagna and 1,500 children the Friulian school there.