NO RUTH FOR WEAK.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 157, 6 July 1939, Page 20

NO RUTH FOR WEAK.

GESTAPO METHODS WITH CZECHS.

BROTHER OF BENBS TGUS STORY. (By ROBERT HOTZ.) MILWAUKEE. A tale of Czechoslovakia groaning under German oppression was told by John Benes on, his return here afteY 11 months in war-frightened Europe. John, 69, ie a brother of Eduard Benes, exiled ex-President of the Czochoslovakian Republic. John left Milwaukee last June for a vacation visit to his Bohemian homeland; but the power politics of Adolf Hitler turned his vacation into a nightmare and left him at the bedside of a dying nation. "It is terrible, terrible in Czechoslovakia," Benes muttered, shaking his head. "The Czechs have nothing. Everything ie German. They are cutting the forests of Bohemia to the ground to get wood fibre for their 'Ersatz' shirts, gasoline, everything they make from wood. Everything from the mines and factories is shipped back to Germany. You see the loaded trucks on the roads to Germany and the empties coming back.

"The German's took over all Czechoslovakia right after they marched into Sudeten land. The secret police (Gestapo) spread its net all over the country, and, Prague was filled witli Genr.an* spies. They would try to pick fights with Czechs so the German Press could write stories about oppressed Germans. "Lies! Lies!" "I saw two Germans fight in the main square of Prague. The German jwpers [uinted pictures of it and said a German was being assaulted by a Czech. I sawfive Germans enter a cafe and talk and sin« loudly to make the other people mad. The Czechs just sat. They knew what was going on. Finally one of the Germans moved to another table and threw an ash tray at his friends. - A fight started and, of course, the Czechs were drawn in. "That is how the stories of Czech troubles were made." "In one town I saw the Germans tell all the children to pray. When they were on their knees they took a picture and published it in German papers to show the Czech children begging for food. Lies! Lies! Xobody fn Gei-' many or Czechoslovakia knows what is really going on in the world. "We didn't know Germany was invading Czechoslovakia until the troops marched into Prague. The night before, we heard that the German army was again massing on the border. That was all. Next day we saw them in Prague. "I had troubles, but nothing ever happended to me," he smiled. "I wrote for the Czech papers before Munich and the Gestapo had me on their list. After the Germans came I wa«s followed day and night'. So I kept still. That is why nobody in the United States heard from me. I knew better than to say anything.

"There, You Damn Nazis—" "They wouldn't let me take my Czech money out of the country and wouldn't give me dollars for my travellers' cheques. It took me three weeks to get through the Gestapo office and- be allowed to. leave the country. It didn't make a. bit of difference to them that I was an American citizen for 49 years. Even the American consul couldn't do anything with the Gestapo. "They finally made me take a German ship to America and gave me money that I could spend only in Germany or on shipboard. Even there the Gestapo followed me. I knew who they were and when we got into New York Harbour under the Statue of Liberty I pointed to it ,and shook my fist at the Gestapo men. " 'There, you damn Nazis,' I told them, 'that's as far as you can follow me. That is what that torch up there means. Thie is a free country. , " — N.A.2J.A.