REPRISALS ON PRISONERS OF WAR

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 241, 12 October 1942, Page 2

REPRISALS ON PRISONERS OF WAR

one can foresee where the campaign of reprisals upon prisoners r : Y ar wi J' lead: jt may P r °gi"ess from evil to evil into horrors as frightful as those of the Jewish and Polish concentration camps and firing squads. The British statement of what was done is straightforward and clear, and it bears the stamp of honesty and candour. An unauthorised hand-tying order was issued at Dieppe; it was countermanded without a single instance of its use being discovered. Later, in the raid on Sark, the hands of prisoners were linked with their captors to prevent them raising the alarm while they were being escorted to the boats. Five did attempt to escape and to raise the anc * [ our °f them were shot, otherwise the raiding party would itself have been wiped out. This is seized upon by the Germans as an excuse for putting over a thousand officers and men, who had no part in the incident, to the indignity and discomfort of chains, with a threat that thousands more will be similarly treated if the British in turn similarly bind a number of their German prisoners. The dire punishment of subject races without even a charge being laid against them, the murder of hostages by hundreds in Western Europe and bv thousands in Poland and Russia, have shown how the German character h ?®J be ® n Progressively brutalised, and this utter defiance of the clauses of the Geneva Convention which relate to the treatment of war prisoners another step along the road to savagery. The German Army at one time prided itself upon its honour, it exacted retribution for anv taint of dishonour upon its officers and men, but it also honoured its to who were completely in its power as prisoners. Now the Nazlfication of the army seems to be as complete as that of the rest of Germany. It has accepted the worst implications of Hitlerism and is punishing the guiltless in sheer lust of cruelty. For not even a »f rn ?^ n c I suggest that under no circumstances upon a battlefield should precautions to safeguard prisoners be taken. In the face of the £ ff orts to destroy every possible member of the enemy's side on the ?n£2ls? th. 1S di , fficu t 1 1 t to understand why the Germans have refused explanation of the relatively innocuous incident on Sark instead of embarking upon a series of reprisals which can only brin« acute bodily and mental suffering to thousands of innocent prisoners of war, and may lead to as yet unplumbed depths of barbarity.