SORELY RAVAGED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXVI, Issue 29, 3 February 1945, Page 5

SORELY RAVAGED

DUCHY OF LUXEMBURG Nazis Carry Off Live Stock, Grain And Clothing N.Z. Press Association —Copyright Rec. 10.30 a.m. LONDON, Feb. 2. The Duchy of Luxemburg, which twice escaped war damage, is now one of the hardest hit countries in Europe, declares the British United Press correspondent after a tour of "this tiny land." Six of the biggest towns, excluding the capital city of Luxemburg and the second city of Esch, have been almost wiped out. The inhabitants are down to half the normal diet and 40,000 producing farmers have become consumers without having even their own living quarters because more than three-fifths of the Duchy's self-sustaining farm lands have been ravaged. Luxemburg, in the Germans' Ardennes counter-offensive, was reoccupied, reliberated and devastated in the process. In addition to severe civilian casualties, 65,400 Luxemburgers, or one-quarter of the entire population, have moved southward as refugees from the battle area. The Germans carried off more than half the live stock from Luxemburg, besides large quantities of grain and all the clothing they could lay their hands on. The remainder of the live stock is now being killed off because of lack of fodder and The towns of Diekirch, Ettlebruck. Echternach and Clervaux are all half destroyed and Vianden is a total loss. Clervaux, before the German break-through, used to ship tramloads of grain to stricken areas in. Belgium and France. Now it is Luxemburg which needs food.