ILL-TREATED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 127, 31 May 1937, Page 7

ILL-TREATED.

REBELS' PRISONERS.

Stories of Horrors Told in

France.

CANADIAN'S ANGER ROUSED

United Press Association.—Copyright.

(Received 11.30 a.m.) PARIS, May 30.

"I'd like to push that lie down the throat of whoever said it!" said Bert Levy, a Canadian who was one of a group of British prisoners released by the rebels in an exchange arrangement, on his arrival at Hendaye, over the border from Spain. He had been questioned about a rebel statement that the prisoners were well treated.

He continued: "We were practically starved. We were covered with vermin and had no water to clean ourselves. We were forced to sleep on the ground. Ten of my comrades died of lung trouble."

A Frenchman captured in the Madrid fitting said: "I lay for months in a filthy prison and was constantly maltreated. An officer entered every night and took out men to be shot, then buried, by a fatigue party.

"We were mustered in the prison yard a week ago while General Franco's brother braggingly extolled Fascism and announced our early liberation. We did not believe him because men had been taken out and shot the same night, as usual.

"However, two days later, we were crammed into cars and taken to a Salamanca prison, where, with other captives, we were filmed and forced to say before a microphone, 'We become Fascists,' and to cheer for the rebel cause.

"Apparently we were liberated on the instructions of the Italian Fascist Propaganda Committee." Other accounts corroborate the Frenchman's story.

REFUGEE CHILDREN.

May Never Recover from Fear Of Aeroplanes. "AIR RAID NEUROSIS." LONDON, May 28. Doctors caring for the Basque children refugees are closely studying the many cases of "air raid neurosis." It is feared that many of the sufferers will never recover from their hysterical fear of aeroplanes. Although R.A.F. and civil 'planes have been ordered not to fly over the cam]) at North Shoreham, it is impossible to avoid doing so occasionally, as machines must circle low to land at Southampton aerodrome. Immediately the roar of an engine is heard, the affected children, chiefly girls, rush screaming to their tents, and cower inside, terror-stricken. It is useless to tell them that the 'planes are British and harmless. About 100 of the children survived the Guernica raid, and several are old enough to describe in detail how 'planes swooped down, machine-gunning and bombing fleeing families. The 4000 in the camp are described as the pick of Bilbao's children, physically and mentally. The teachers accompanying them say it is feared that some of the children left behind are hopelessly unbalanced, owing to air raid hysteria.