VAIN PROTEST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 March 1943, Page 2

VAIN PROTEST

MADE BY KING OF BELGIANS AGAINST DEPORTATION OF WORKERS. NAZIS ALLEGE NECESSITY OF WAR. (By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright) LONDON, March 25. King Leopold has protested to Hitler against the deportation of Belgian workers to Germany. The latest issue of the clandestine newspaper, “La Libero Belgique,” to reach London publishes a letter from the King, which was written in the Castle Laekms, where he is interned, to M. Nolf, president of the Belgian Red Cross. _ It says, “Our country is undergoing a new and cruel order of forced labour which compels our workers to leave Belgum. The fate of the women is particularly pitiful. Young gills are sent to foreign lands, where they do not know the language and are exposed to dangers among which those of a moral nature are not the least. “I approached the Chancellor of the Reich and informed him of my profound concern at the mass deportations among all classes of the population, which has not forgotten the labour camps of 1914-18, and urged him to withdraw the measures, which strike unjustly at a people who have nothing with which to reproach themselves. “I received a reply stating that the necessity of war prevents Germany from stopping the deportations. I have had no option but to take note of this refusal.”