STUDENTS CRIPPLED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 139, 27 March 1940, Page 7

STUDENTS CRIPPLED

MANY DISABLED BY GERMAN PRISON TORTURE Further details are reaching London of numerous new arrests in the Czech Protectorate. In Brno, capital of Moravia,, 688 students were* arrested by ihe Gestapo, Nazi secret police. They were tied up in lours, loaded into goods trucks and taken to concentration camps. Machine guns were mounted on the platforms of the trains. The campaign of arrest is spreading to the provinces. In well-informed circles it is estimated that one-half of the total number of Czech journalists are now in custody. Some of the students arrested after the firsti November revolts have been sent home from the concentration camps after having been so brutally treated that they are incapable of working.. In some cases parents couid scarcely recognise their children, so severely mutilated were their faces. Many of these students have been crij>pled for life. Enforced labour has been introduced for Czechs up to 70 years of age. All men up to 30 are liable to be called up for military service. These pressed soldiers, including exofficers and civil servants, are carried off to the Reich to work on German fortifications. Czech inlluencc is being eliminated from every walk of liie. Czech employees have a German supervisor and, wherever possible, Czech workers are dispensed with altogether.