NAZI BARBARISM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 May 1941, Page 5

NAZI BARBARISM

ARREST OF THE YUGOSLAV PATRIARCH IN PURSUANCE OF POLICY OF PLUNDER. APPEAL TO CIVILISED WORLD. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. May 4. Broadcasting from London in the Serbo-Croat language, a Yugoslav diplomat voiced the world-wide indignation at the Gestapo's seizure of Monsignor Gavrilo, Patriarch of the Orthodox Church. “Monsignor Gavrilo. - ’ he said, “was accused by the Germans of having sheltered our national treasure, which belongs to the Crown and to the Orthodox people of Yugoslavia. With their usual cynicism and in accordance with their anti-religious tactics in Poland and other countries, the Germans want to plunder not only individual and State property and the food of the people, but also the treasures under the protection of our spiritual leaders. This ignominious act on the part of the Gestapo and swastika followers, who are drenched in the blood of the ■ peoples they have overrun, is bound to provoke the utmost disgust in all the civilised world.” The most telling point the speaker made was that the country which had perpetrated the outrage was the country which for many years had published books on Yugoslav monastries and their spiritual significance for the Orthodox people of Yugoslav—a country which also had maintained for many years that its chief desire was to promote friendly relations between the Yugoslav and German peopL.” “During the five centuries of Tin kish rule over Serbia the Turks never tried to enter our monasteries and scare!', for money, priests and bishops.” the diplomat said. “Now we see twentieth century Germany trying to apply the methods of the Tartars and other Asiatic conquerors.”