VILE TREATMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 1 September 1941, Page 6

VILE TREATMENT

: 4 GIVEN TO FRENCH PRISONERS BY GERMANS —— I ESCAPED MAN STATES FACTS. I SYSTEMATIC STARVATION & BRUTALITY. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, August 31, The dreadful treatment the Germans meted out to French prisoners was described to “The Times” 1 Cairo correspondent by a young Frenchman, who, after ten months’ captivity, escaped through Austria, Hungary, Rumania, Turkey, Syria and Palestine to Egypt. When he arrived in Syria the Vichy authorities reimprisoned him, but he was released when the Allies occupied Syria and is now going to England to join the Free French Air Force. He said French soldier prisoners, from the moment of their capture, were systematically starved. French officers and all ranks of the British were better treated. Only French soldiers were brutalised, because France had no German prisoners on whom to inflict reprisals. The men lived for months in holes in the ground, expos- 1 ed to the sun and rain. The hygenic i conditions were detestable. For weeks s the only food consisted of soup made I from rotten potatoes, with seven oun- 1 ces of poor black bread and a cup of I alleged coffee, which actually was hot water in which a few fragments of s ersatz coffee had been boiled. Except I for the parcels sent from their fami- e lies, whole camps must have starved. \ Brutal young Nazi guards maintained I order with the assistance of savage po- t lice dogs, trained to pull down prison- t ers at the word of command, which I was given at the slightest provocation, t The prisoners were paid with “camp v notes,” which were worthless else- c where and useless in camp, because s the canteens had practically nothing c to sell. C The R.A.F raids frightened and irritated the prison guards .and prisoners were often confined to camp for several days after raids, while the signs of damage were hidden.