SABOTAGE UNCHECKED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 21 October 1942, Page 1

SABOTAGE UNCHECKED

BRUTALITY IN SLOVAKIA London, Sept. 25. I Italians in Slovakia are now yapping ; at the heels of the Germans, who. with i their usual brutality, are trying to check ! the wave of railway sabotage. The Slo- ' vak network is extremely important for German supplies both to and from the Reich, but firing squads and mass de portations have failed to check the ( operations of the dauntless patriots. The Germans themselves admit that 1473 hostages have been shot. 16 vil- . lages—l6 Lidices unknown to the outI side world—have been razed, and more than 165 Slovenes have been deported j to the Reich. The Italian commander of the lltli Army Corps has now taken up the blusterings of his German bosses. The text of a recent decree, which has just reached London, forbids approach tu railway lines by nearer than one kilo metre except in towns. Trespassers will immediately be shot. The decree was issued “in the name of the victorious Italy, which has accorded you humane and beneficial conditions.” Italians have razed 42 villages near railways, have taken 70,000 Slovenes to j Italy, while several thousand have been j shot, either as hostages or in punitive, raids. The railways run through diffi cult country for many miles along the side of ravines, across bridges, ancr over narrow gorges, and any dislocation is hard to repair.