BARBARITY OF GERMANS

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23916, 7 April 1943, Page 3

BARBARITY OF GERMANS

REPORT OF SOVIET COMMISSION (Rcc. 11 p.iru LONDON, April 6. The Moscow radio broadcast a statement from a special commission investigating German atrocities and vandalism in Soviet territory, which accuses the Nazis of ruthlessly destroying Soviet towns and villages, and torturing, outraging, and murdering peaecful citizens. “History has known no such wholesale extermination of a people,” says the statement, which mentions particularly German barbarities in the regions of Vyazma, Gzhatsk, and Rzhev, where, on the orders of the German generals, Heinritz and Model, Soviet citizens, including women and children and aged people, had their eyes burned out and their feet, hands, and ears cut off. The statement cites numerous instances of citizens being shot in batches after being forced to dig their own graves. In two villages in the Gzhatsk district all the inhabitants, including small children, were burned alive. Soviet war prisoners were deliberately refused medical assistance, and some were used as targets during firing practice “Hitler’s army tortures or kills all those it does not want, while those capable of working are carried away like cattle to Germany,” says the statement.