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GERMAN TERROR IN NORTHERN FRANCE.

BRITISH PRISONERS BEHIND THE LINES. j London, Feb. 20. Reuter's Agency has received from a' trustworthy Belgian citizen, who has! just reached London from the German! army zone of Valenciennes in Northern; Prance, an account of the terrible conditions existing in the occupied provinces,, which no one is allowed to enter or leave, and whence news scarcely; ever reaches .England.

When I left St. Amand (Northern; France) a few weeks ago," he said, "the copditions had become unbearable. The Germans have organised slavery in the nrmy zone. All the men from seventeen, to fifty had been taken away. Some were; sent to Boiiat-to wo?k on a railway line, others to Alsace. The nnmanaed wo-i men under 40. are obliged to work in the' fields, and even the little girls from' twelve to fourteen are prevented from going to school and sent to collect acorns. and nettles.

"If you refuse to work, you are first, condemned to pay a fine, ilf you cannot,or will not, do this, you are shut upi jn a cell of the prison until the fine is paid or your time is up. If, you re-! •fuse a second time, then you are sent to Germany. . . and one seldom comes back alive from Germany. In spite of this, a great any men prefer to b"e deported rather than work for the enemy. I saw a great many Belgians deported in this way.

"Besides the civil prisoners, the Germans have brought behind their lines a great number of prisoners of war whom they compel to work under terrible cir-

cumstances. There were eighty English and sixty Frencn at Mortagne and 200 : English at Saint-Amand. The English' were especially badly treated and were all in want of food.

"The regime is terrible. A neighbor of mine spent fourteen months in a German prison camp for hiding an Alsatian absentee whose father was a Frenchman. The non-co,mmissioned officer, called Flesehmann, who discovered this man, killed him on the spot without trial; The same Flesehmann hexed the ear.s of another woman wLJ such violence that she' became deaf. When she said she would complain to the Konimandantur the sergeant threatened her with his bayonet. Quite recently I saw in the market place of St. Amand an old woman, who had been arrested, struck by a German soldier with the butt of his -ifie because she ,was not able to walk quickly enough. "Anyone attempting to cross the Fran-co-Belgian frontier is shot at sight. At a place called Maulde two Belgians, one the father of six children, the other the father of four children, were killed in this way. The first one was not dead, ' so they finished him with the butts of their riflfle'a. Not far from there a girl of ,13, an orphan, who was looking after two small children,. was killed without warning as she was trying to cross the frontier in order to fetch sorae bread from a village near by."

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19180419.2.28

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Taranaki Daily News, 19 April 1918, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
498

GERMAN TERROR IN NORTHERN FRANCE. Taranaki Daily News, 19 April 1918, Page 4

GERMAN TERROR IN NORTHERN FRANCE. Taranaki Daily News, 19 April 1918, Page 4

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