At Christmas time in 1914, by Ottoline's advice. I found a way of making despair not unendurable. I took to visiting destitute Germans on behalf of a charitable committee to investigate their circumstances and to relieve their distress if they deserved it. In the course of this work, I came upon remarkable instances of kindness in the middle of the fury of war. Not infrequently in the poor neighbourhoods landladies, themselves poor, had allowed Germans to stay on without paying any rent, because they knew it was impossible for Germans to find work. This problem ceased to exist soon afterwards, as the Germans were all interned, but during the first months of the War their condition was pitiable.
Source:The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, v.2 chap. 1:The First War, 1968
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