STRUGGLE BY CZECHS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20003, 31 July 1939, Page 5

STRUGGLE BY CZECHS

Sixty Czechs were arrested at Prague and accused of belonging to a Czech liberation organisation. They were sent to a concentration camp in Germany.

STEALTHY PROPAGANDA CONCERN TO INVADERS LONDON, June 20. Stealthy anti-Nazi propaganda throughout Bohemia and Moravia is causing the Germans the gravest concern. The Czechs are struggling doggedly ito retain 'their racial unity against the invader. Widespread sabotage continues in the great arms factories, where a difference of one-thousandth part of an inch means that armaments are useless. Czech specialists before fleeing caused 'ir,replaceable damage in the vast underground shadow factories in the Waag Valley, in Northern Slovakia, whither they had' .been removed to escape aerial bombardment. The Germans are making hundreds of arrests, including many of the friends of Dr. Benes, the former president, and they are fiercely endeavouring to defeat passive resistance. City of Two Peoples The Gestapo (German Secret Police) Iras established its headquarters in the Pamkrac prison, in a suburb qf Prague, and there are day-long interrogations. Prague has become a city of two separate peoples —900.000 Czechs and 30,000 Germans, who do not mix. Czech girls refuse to dance with German soldiers.

Most active aeroplane and detector searches have failed to discover the secret short-wave station which is broadcasting lanti-German propaganda. The police are searching Czechs, and also the streets, for chain letters, whereby the populace learns the truth of events in the outside world. An intense Germanising campaign is proceeding in Moravia. All Czech mayors are being replaced, and Streets nre being given German names. Three thousand unemployed Czechs have been sent to Germany. Forty Czech .policemen at Brunn (Brno) have been arrested. Long columns, of motor transport continue to arrive lempty 'and to return to Germany laden with armaments, raw materials •and loods-tuffs.