No one understood, why Pamela Moore, a cousin of Barbara Moore, desperately wanted to travel to Europe. It was 1915. There was a war going on at the other side of the Atlantic. A journey at sea had become deadly dangerous, because of submarine warfare and mines all around, which all did not check a ship’s flag before coming into action.
But cousin Pamela was undoubtedly endowed with the stubbornness, characteristic for the Moore women.
“I want to see Paris, before the Huns have burned it down!” cousin Pamela had firmly stated. “And then, I got to Italy! That country is not at war! I want to see the Antique and Renaissance art treasures, before I start raising a family, since there will no more be time for travel, then! And I cannot wait for years anymore!”
So, niece Pamela left New York on May 2nd 1915, a little bit disappointed, since she had wanted to depart a day earlier and on RMS Lusitania. But her cousin Barbara, who had helped her at the booking, had confused Cunard with White Star line, and so, Pamela travelled on a smaller liner from the latter company.
On May 10th 1915, the Moore family got a cable that niece Pamela had safely arrived at Le Havre, France.
On May 21nd 1915, another cable : “Paris was wonderful! I leave with a night train to Italy this evening!”
On May 23rd 1915, Italy declared war to the Central Powers.
No more news had been received from cousin Pamela since.
The Moore family obviously got worried. Through diplomatic ways, they tried to find out what had happened. In vain, unfortunately.
Things worsened of course, as the war drew on, and the US joined the Allies. Because, actually, the only hint they got, was a message from a certain Mr. Theodore Henry Tree, a high official from the American Embassy in Paris, who recalled that, in May 1915, a certain Miss Pamela Moore had informed about getting a visa for a week in Vienna. She would thereby travel through neutral Italy. Mr. Tree recalled having warned her that tension was building up between Italy and Austria-Hungary, but that Miss Moore had insisted she would like to visit Vienna. He could however not confirm that she had really made the trip.
Was Pamela stuck in Vienna, the border with Italy being closed behind her? But she was an American, it would take almost two years before the US was at war with Austria? It still would have been possible for her to return to Italy or France across Switzerland?
The other worrying element was a piece of propaganda, the attention of the Moore family had been drawn on, after the US had joined the war against the Central Powers. A propaganda piece, depicting cousin Pamela as a victim of war atrocities, allegedly committed by the Austrian Army.
Finally, the war ended, and in the summer of 1919, as soon as a peace treaty had been signed, Barbara Moore took on a voyage to Europe, hoping to find out what had happened to her cousin Pamela. Her first destination was the embassy in Paris for a meeting with Mr. Tree, and next, an address in Montmartre, where she was received by an artist.
“This is a work from your hand, Monsieur?”
“Sure, mademoiselle, I recall her clearly. I met her at the Lapin Agile. A remarkable woman! Pablo, who incidentally was in Paris, immediately fell on her! He had a strange influence on her!”
“What do you mean, Monsieur?”
“In a few days, he has turned her from a somewhat conservative, although adventurous American young woman, into an activist determined to help ending the war, and in such a way to create a better world. She has turned to an ideology, which has evolved to what we call now, and fear now : Bolshevism!”
“We have been told, she wanted to Vienna!”
“It is possible. She saw the Double Monarchy as the weakest link of the old world. If it would fall, the rest of Europe would go down with it, and on its ruins, the proletarian paradise would be built up!”
“So it is not impossible, that she has joined a clandestine Bolshevik movement, to start agitation against the Austrian government!”
“Is it possible, Mademoiselle Moore, and that she got arrested by Austrian police! It was war, Mademoiselle! Such agitators were mostly executed for high treason! Pole hanging.”
Barbara shivered. That Mr. Tree in the embassy had also coined that option, although he was not aware of cousin Pamela’s alleged ‘conversion’ to Bolshevism. Mr. Tree had explained with more detail how it went. Mostly, the trials were by court martial, with little communication of verdicts to the public! Sentenced inside prison, and immediately getting walked to the hanging pole. No more words or time wasted! There was a row of poles in the prison courtyard. The condemned were stripped naked, put with their back against a pole, hands tied in front. A thin noose, attached to a rope running over a pulley on top of the pole, was put over their neck. Then, the rope was pulled from behind, and the condemned was slowly strangulated. Their minutes long banging of their feet and legs against the pole, reechoed loudly against the walls of the courtyard, and could be heard by all prisoners in their cells. A nasty prospect for those whose trial was scheduled for the next days. Mr. Tree had told it with an unmistakable Arkansas accent, making it sound even more morbid. But, as he had said, there were no indications that there had been a Pamela Moore executed that way.
“According to sources, this drawing, made by you, was based on finds of similar drawings in Austria. It is told, they depict real facts, real atrocities, committed during the war!? Could this cruelty have been the fate of my cousin? That’s really her, on this drawing, there is no doubt about it”
“No, Mademoiselle! Your cousin has most likely not been crucified! Actually, permit me to tell, that your cousin had a somewhat… strange kink, as they call it. She insisted to act as a model for me..”
“A model, Monsieur Steinlen?”
“Yes, Mademoiselle Moore. She insisted on posing naked for me, posing like a crucified woman, in different positions! It excited her, really. When she left to Italy, she has taken a few drawings of her with. She has paid me for them! It looks like, at least one of the drawings has been separated from her and has appeared somewhere in Austria. Aparently it has started its own life. That story that the find in Austria depicts a real crucifixion of a woman in Serbia is false! All the drawings have been made here, by me! What does it tell about her real fate, I don’t know!? With the copy I had kept with me, I wanted to make a ‘Crucified Belgium’, but then, the invasion of Serbia occurred, and depicting her as a crucified Serbia better suited the propaganda needs of the moment!”
View attachment 911254 (Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923) : 'Crucified Serbia' (1916)).
