FOR WOMEN WOMEN RELEASED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 82, 7 April 1943, Page 5

FOR WOMEN WOMEN RELEASED

PRISONERS OF NAZIS

NEARLY 50 EXCHANGED

Nearly 50 British women arrived in Lisbon recently from a German concentration camp, all eagerly awaiting the last stage of their jourjiey home. They were in good spirits, although fatigued by four days' travelling. Most of them had lost weight—some had been in captivity for three years. The women, who are to be exchanged for German women from East Africa, came from Liebanau, near Lake Constance, states an English paper. There they had been interned in what was formerly a convent, now used as a home for mentally deficients. They were treated kindly, and the food, if dull and monotonous, was adequate. One of the women, elderly and charming, was a schoolmistress in Warsaw when the Germans shelled and bombed the Polish capital. With the party were some women who had been interned at Vittel, in France. There were also two boys, Donald and Peter Berry, aged ten and eight, and their sister, .aged six. They are travelling with their mother, Mrs. Lucy Berry, of London, whose husband is a captain in the British Army. While in camp she gave up her bread ration to the children. Others include Mrs. Blanchard and her daughter, Joan, of Southport. The ship in which they were travelling to Burma was sunk in July, 1940. Another of the party, Mabel B. Wood, of Meopham, Kent, was returning from Australia aftes, accompanj'ing some British children there when her ship was sunk. The Liebcnau internees brought back with them a packing case containing fancy bags and other articles they have made with string from Red Cross parcels. These articles will be given to the Red Cross when the women reach Britain. They said they were kept going by these parcels.