THREAT OF EXECUTION

Chronicle (Levin), 25 November 1946, Page 5

THREAT OF EXECUTION

-Press Associaiidn

N.Z. Woman's Experierices GESTAPO'S ROUGH TREATMENT

By Telegraph—

WELLINGTON, Nov. 24. Imprisoiied by the Germans in Ludapest and threatened with 'rxceufio'n beeause she was snpposed to have tried to iielp New' Zealanders in eseaping from enemy territorv, Miss Franees WarlMtrton Lee, who arrived in Wellington 011 Saturday by the Ruahine from England, described in an interview the dread which she had suifered at the hands of the enemy and how British women had been killed for befriending Jews. The ordeal did not cease, she said, after tlie British women had be£n, as they thought, liberal" ed by the Russian advanee into Hungary. The British women had greeted the Russians as rescuing allies only to flnd them hostile to the British and rcady to engage in an orgy of looting and personal violence whieli she herself had expcriepeed. jMiss Lee, who was born in Christehureh, is a coiisin of Gommander Bernard Warlnirton Lee V.(\, who lost liis life at Narvik. She went'to England" dtiring the B 14-18 war and served as a nurse and subsequently lived in severil European countries including Hungary. She intends to reniain in New Zealand. Aliss Lee said five women of the British colonv in Budapest were detained by the Gostapo and were all roughly treated in prison. Tlie Germans told us we were going to be hanged. iMiss Jean Havning, the head of a Scottisli mission. who had done wonderful work for the Jews, was taken to the notorions Auschwitz concentration camp. Heaven knows how she died there. A11 English woman, Miss Moadows. was taken out into the snow by . Hungarian Nazis and sliot simply beeause she had befriended the Jews. Al iss Lee said rolease*from the Xnzi ]>rison in August 1944 was due to a Gernian of'ficer who destroyed the dossiers of tlie British wopien and set them free.