LABOUR DEMANDS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 August 1943, Page 4

LABOUR DEMANDS

OF NAZI GERMANY OPPOSED IN ALL OCCUPIED COUNTRIES. PI'IOI'I.F. ROUSED TO ACTION (By A I’onomarev, “Soviet War News”) Hol. a t;ingle eounlfy has fulfilled the laboiii’ quotas fixed by Berlin. People fitibjecl. Io mobilisation fail to report, manager;; “cook" their returns of ablebodied employee!), groups of workers smauh up the recruitment centres, destroy the records, and kill German mercenaries. Armed patriots attack trains carrying mobilised workers, and set them free. In mid-Marcb, the "Gazette de Lausanne" wrote; "Of 350 workers of one factory selected for dispatch* to Germany, only 48 reported at. the'-station. Of 120 p'.-rson.s mobilised at, another works, one reported, and the rest went into biding.” In Lyon;;, Gestapo troop;; cordon off one block after another at night and carry people off by force. The press gangs are al work in Paris, Bordeaux, Toulon, and Lille. FRENCH DEMONSTRATIONS. I The departure of mobilised workers for Germany is made the occasion of anti-Gcrrnan and anti-Laval demonstrations. Hugo crowds gather at the railway stations, make militant speeches, sing the “Marseillaise” and shout: “Down v/ith Hitler! Long live France! Long live the Soviet. Union!” In industrial Belgium, strikes are one of the most important, forms of struggle against Hitler. An announcement that 120 workers were to be sent to Germany was posted up recently at the “Coquerill” iron and steel works at Liege. All the 2,000 workers of the plant went on strike. The next day the strike was joined by all the metal workers in Liege, Flambal, Angleur and Griveniez, and then by sixteen factories and ten coal-pits of the Herve district. The strike spread like lighting. After three days 60,000 people were out. There were stormy anti-German demonstrations and clashes with the police and German patrols. The occupation authorities proclaimed a state of emergency and began to rush up troops. The people were forbidden to appear in the streets after 3 p.m. But the order for the dispatch of workers was cancelled.

In Poland, guerillas recently occupied the town of Tomasz-Lubelsky, which the Germans used as a depot for the distribution of labour, and routed its garrison. In some provinces resistance to the Germans takes the form of largescale engagements. A ten-day battle, involving 2,000 German soldiers, supported by tanks and artillery, was fought in Lublin province, where the guerillas rose in defence of peasants who were being deported to Germany. MILLIONS MADE ACTIVE ENEMIES. . “Total mobilisation” has made millions more people into active enemies of Hitlerite Germany. Every able-bodied man now has to fight for his own personal safety, for the preservation of his own life. * There' were those who hoped to keep out of the struggle and wait until Germany was defeated by the Allied nations. They used to preach endless • expectancy, endless postponement of resolute action. Their irresolution vanishes, faced with the inexorable cruelty of “total mobilisation.” All sections of the people are affected. “Total mobilisation” applies not only to skilled workers but to students and employees, tradespeople, ex-offi-cers and soldiers, many well-to-do people, their children and relatives. All this widens the base of the national liberation movement. Only a year ago Frenchmen argued about the possibility or impossibility of guerilla action. Now life itself has proved that guerilla struggle is possible and essential.