NAZI ATROCITIES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 April 1943, Page 3

NAZI ATROCITIES

MORE SOVIET REVELATIONS GHASTLY DEEDS OF TORTURE * AND MURDER. PEOPLE OF VILLAGES BURNT ALIVE. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, Apil 5. The Moscow radio today broadcast a statement from the special commission investigating German atrocities and vandalism in the Soviet territory, which accuses the Nazis of ruthlessly destroying Soviet, towns and villages and of torturing, outraging and murdering peaceful citizens. “History has known no such wholesale extermination of people,” says the statement, which mentions particularly German barbarities in the regions of Vyazma, Gzhatsk and Rzhev, where, on the orders of the German Generals Heinritz and Model, Soviet citizens, including women, children and aged people had their eyes burnt out, and feet, hands and ears cut off. The statement cites numerous instances of citizens being shot in batches after being forced to dig their own graves. In two villages in the Gzhatsk district all the inhabitants, including small children, were burnt alive. Soviet war prisoners were deliberately refused medical assistance, and some were used as targets during firing practice. “Hitler’s army tortures and kills all those whom it does not want, while those who are capable of working are carried away like cattle to Germany,” the statement says. The statement of the special com- . mission says that the bodies of 3000 civilians and prisoners of war were found in one ditch which was used as a grave. In some instances villagers were driven over minefields. People who were suspected of being in touch with guerillas were tortured with knives. The statement gives a long list of German officers and units responsible for systematic destruction and atrocit-' ies.