UNHAPPY GREECE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 122, 26 May 1942, Page 3

UNHAPPY GREECE

APPALLING PROSPECT MAY LOSE HALF HER PEOPLE LONDON, March 16. Between 150,000 and 200,000 Greeks have been massacred, executed, or died of starvation since the occupation. Greek officials fear that, unless effective aid is given, half the country's population of 7,000,000 may be dead before the war ends. These figures were given in Cairo from authenticated accounts by people who have just escaped. Greece, they say, can produce only a quarter of her normal consumption of wheat because so much seed has been shipped to Germany. The peak of deaths from starvation in Athens was reached last month, when the daily toll was 1500. So many people reeled over in the streets that the Germans established first-aid booths, where victims were given a shot of adrenalin. Many people queue up all day to get the ration of four ounces of black bread, in which maize, rice and chestnut flour are mixed. A park in the centre of Athens has been converted into a cemetery because there is no transport to. take the dead to suburban burial grounds. German officers enter homes to requisition blankets, rugs and anything they need. They give receipts gaad for cash, but the money is not enough to buy food, fuel and more blankets. The people eat donkeys, mules, dandelions and herbs.