LOOTING IN GREECE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 5, Issue 16, 13 February 1942, Page 5

LOOTING IN GREECE

GERMANS "DO" ITALIANS

Petty looting in Greece by the Germans extended,from stealing lire waggons to snatching the' babies' milk—literally—declares Harold Denny in a message from Cairo to the New York Times. He says that one* June 19 a shipment of canned milk arrived as the gift of Mussolini for poor children of Athens and Piraeus. It was immediately confiscated by the Germans. After the Italians took over and the food shortage was acute, Italian soldiers drove up in two trucks in front of a food store where lines of Greek people were waiting. The soldiers began tossing out loaves of bread to the astonished and hungry Athenians, who caught them, while a camera recorded this big-hearted deed. When enough film had been taken, the soldiers took back the bread, and, the "philanthropic" cavalcade sped away tot repeat the performance in another part of the cit3 r . One of the prides of Athens w r as its modern German-made fire-fight-ing apparatus. After the Italians took over the occupation they found that the Nazis had sent thesle five' engines back to Germany. The Greeks, who could still laugh even in tragic adversity, said it did not matter much, because, as the Germans had taken away all cigarettes and matches, there was little clanger of fire anyway. Greek and neutral observers, who recently reached Cairo from Greece and were the sources of information for survey of conditions there, said that the Italians, although considerate in comparison with the Germans, had learned a trick or tiwo in tactics frQm their more powerful partners. Italian Play of Generosity This resembles a technique Mr Denny says the Germans used in Prague after their occupation of Czechoslovokia. Despite the fact that the Czechs were better fed than the ordinary German civilians when the Germans invaded their country, Lhe Nazis sent a "food train." The train's staff dispensed soup and other food while movie cameras ground. The partakers were Czechoslovak Nazis dressed in Bohemian peasant garb, who grinned gratefully for the cameras. Anyone who has seen much of the dreary happenings of Europe in recent years knowns the camera can be a much bigger liar than the printed or spoken Avord.