GESTAPO DRIVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 June 1942, Page 3

GESTAPO DRIVE

ATTEMPT TO SMASH REVOLT IN PARIS MANY ARRESTS DURING LAST SEVEN DAYS. DISCOVERY OF TERRORISTS’ ARSENAL. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY. June 13. A big new Gestapo drive to smash the under ground organisations of resistance in Paris, the first details -of which reached London three weeks ago, is being intensified, and is now concentrated on socalled “red belt,” the ring of working-class districts on the outskirts of the capital. This is revealed in the latest confidential reports of the Vichy delegation in Paris, copies of which reached the Free French headquarters today. These reports state that 99 arrests have been made in the last seven days. Many women, it is asserted, had been stirring up hostility toward the forces of occupation. Attacks on German military personnel oi’ equipment had now —exactly two years after the fall of Paris—become virtually a daily occurrence.

The report goes on to tell of the activities of a young French patriot, Jean Kerman, who, before his capture, had accounted for three of the Gestapo agents who were sent to arrest him. Kerman, states the report, was the leader of a gang of terrorists who were responsible for 26 attacks against the personnel or equipment of the forces of occupation between November, 1941, and March, 1942. Investigations following the arrest of Kerman led to the discovery of a complete terrorists’ arsenal in a house in Paris. The report adds that in the last six weeks more than 8000 different leaflets, slogans and posters have been produced by different "anti-national” groups. Incidents in Paris are numerous.

BOY HERO MURDERED.

A storv which epitomises the spirit of Free France was told by the British Air Minister, Sir Archibald Sinclair, in the course of an address today to children in Glasgow. The story concerned Guy Moquet aged 17, a French boy, who was among the hostages shot in Nantes as a reprisal for the attack upon the German commanding officer. Horrified at the Germans shooting in cold blood a boy of 17, the wife of one of the condemned men offered herself as a substitute, but was refused. An eyewitness reported that Moquet marched bravely to the place of execution and, with his companions, sang the "Marseillaise.” He wrote a letter of goodbye, m which he stated, “My life has been very short—but I have no regrets. Of course I would like to have lived, but I can only hope with all my heart that my death will serve some purpose.