SEETHING UNREST

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 October 1943, Page 4

SEETHING UNREST

UNDERGROUND STRUGGLE AGAINST NAZIS RESISTANCE IN BELGIUM. LABOUR SENT TO GERMANY. News of German reverses on all fronts and an increasingly bad food situation have stirred up unrest in Nazi-occupied Belgium, writes Egan Kaskeline in the “Christian Science Monitor.” This is indicated by recent information from the occupied territory and confirmed by German communiques published in the Nazi-con-trolled Belgian press. Although acts of revolt and sabotage will not overthrow German rule in Belgium, they have a serious effect on 1 the morale of the occuping army and are hampering production of arms and other war materials for Germany. It is the Belgian worker who leads in the underground struggle against the invaders. Acts of sabotage have become so numerous in Belgian factories that German authorities threaten to deal summarily with actual or alleged saboteurs. Belgian workers are particularly embittered by the increased shipping of Belgian labour to German war plants. According to a statement of Georges Theunis, the Belgian statesman, no fewer than 50,000 Belgian workers were forcibly sent to Germany during the last three months of “The Germans,” he declared, “have abandoned all pretence of voluntary enrolment. They are taking workers at a rate of 20,000 a month.”

The reason for these deportations is not only lack of skilled labour in Germany. The Nazis also aim at destroying underground resistance. While shifting Belgian war factories to Germany, they replace them by Germans and Frenchmen. Belgian miners were also deported and their places taken by Russian miners. In the important Cockerille works, in Liege, however, workers went on strike against a German decision to send them to Germany. As the strike threatened to spread over the entire industrial region the Nazis gave in and postponed the shipment to February 15. THREATS IN BROADCAST. How anxious the Germans and the Belgian ‘‘Quislings” are to restore order in the country was revealed by a threatening broadcast of Jan Brandt, a Flemish pro-Nazi speaker. He declared that the German authorities would not hesitate to shoot numerous hostages if “the Communists’ and White Brigadiers’ (Belgian Patriots) reign of terror over Belgium did not cease immediately.” The Speaker admitted that “public chaos and criminal mental confusion” had been spread among the Belgian population by these underground activities. He said the Germans intended to arm the pro-Nazi Belgian storm troopers, who would eventually become “guardians of justice” in Belgium. These threats were soon followed by acts. The German military commander of Belgium and northern France, which the Nazis fused into a single administrative unit, has issued several decrees against “the -disturbers of peace and order.” All unlicensed persons possessing weapons and ammunition will be treated as terrorists and may be shot immediately without a court-martial. Whoever, harbours “terrorists or Communists” or gives them clothes or food will also bo sentenced to execution. Persons who injure the interests of the occupying authorities by ceasing work dismissing members of the stall', or inciting third persons to stop work will, be punished with hard labour, or imprisonment and may. in serious cases, even be shot. The Nazis have ceased to pretend that onlj’- “Communist criminals” oppose the “new order” in Belgium. A communique of the German authorities of November 21 states that "criminal plots, although executed by Communist circles, have been favoured by the fact that large groups of the population have until now not contributed to prevent these acts or to find out or arrest the perpetrators.”

HOSTAGES SENT TO CAMP. Attempting to crush increased resistance, the German police have arrested numerous hostages from all classes of the Belgian population and have sent them to concentration camps. In cases cf attacks against German soldiers and officials, or against Belgian Nazis, those innocent prisoners are taken and shot in reprisal. The number of victims of Nazi terror has steadily increased in recent weeks. Belgian ill-will against the ruthless invaders has reached a new high level as the food situation in the country has considerably disintegrated during the third war winter. A report published by the “Swedish Committee for Relief of Belgian Children” and dated September, 1942, stresses that “it is no longer possible to obtain official figures relative to the state of health among Belgian children. “Unofficial reports of such persons ; ■who have recently been Sweden state that the mortality among children is appalling and that conditions are infinitely worse now than a year ago. As the war goes on the state of health gets, worse day by day. Letters from Belgium which passed the German censor state that the people get ration cards but that there is nothing to buy.” The food crises in Belgium, though mainly caused by insufficient food supply, is partly also the consequence of a confused distribution and rationing system. No fewer than 4400 food de- ■

crocs have been published by German authorities since May, 1940. Belgium's immediate future is dark and the courageous little people aie threatened by a process of gradual extermination. Yet every new form of pressure which the Nazis put on the conquered country only stimulates the Belgians to double their efforts to resist German domination.