FASCISTS IN HIDING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 May 1943, Page 4

FASCISTS IN HIDING

SEARCH IN THE CITY OF TUNIS SOME ARMY OFFICERS. SAID TO BE POSING AS CIVILIANS. (By Telegraph—-Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.40 a.m.) LONDON, May 16. The British United Press Tunis correspondent says a search is proceeding for Fascists hiding throughout the city, in the cellars and attics of friends and relatives. A number of Italian and German army officers ordered civilian clothes from Tunis tailors three weeks before the city fell. Many Italians asked barbers for new kinds of haircuts before the Axis defences collapsed, and a number of . Germans had their hair dyed. NAZI REIGN OF TERROR PRIOR TO ALLIED ENTRY. MANY ARRESTS AND JEWS HEAVILY FINED. (Received This Day, 11.40 a.m.) LONDON, May 16. Details of a German-Italian reign of terror are being filled in as French and Jews emerge from hiding places, says the “Daily Mail’s” Tunis correspondent, Mr Beethoven. A concert was arranged by the Germans on May 2. Storm troopers arrived, arrested men in the audience, and took them away in trucks. The Germans were getting some of the 8,000 workers they wanted for fortifying the city. They also fined Jews the equivalent of £114,000 after the Allies first bombed Tunis, because the Jews had “instigated the capitalist war.” SPECIAL COURTS SET UP BY GIRAUD ADMINISTRATION. TO TRY COLLABORATORS WITH ENEMY. (Received This Day, 12.20 p.m.) LONDON, May 16. General Giraud's administration is forming special courts to try local persons accused of collaborating with the Germans and Italians in Tunisia, says the “Daily Mail’s” Algiers correspondent. Property will be frozen to prevent the owners from selling or removing it. This property, in certain cases, may be used to reimburse people whose belongings were looted by the enemy. Arabs proved guilty of looting will be severely punished. The Germans paid the Arabs fantastically high prices for foodstuffs and other goods, using French bank notes looted from France. The Arabs could be seen gambling in the streets with wads of 100 franc notes. Political suspects detained inAlgeria include only French persons and 808 foreigners, of whom 553 are Italians. The remainder are enemy collaborators, who were arrested after the Allies’ landing in North Africa.