NAZIS IN HOLLAND

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 139, 9 March 1943, Page 5

NAZIS IN HOLLAND

Terror Rule Surveyed

A composite story, prepared by au inter-Allied committee about Germany s reign of terror in Europe, gives some grim details about the fate ot occupied HollalThe Netherlands Government in London now has the names of 200 Netherlanders who were executed, but this fist is of course, incomplete. About t>oo were taken as hostages immediately after the occupation of Holland in retaliation tor the internment of the Germans m the Netherlands East Indies. Another 1000 hostages were taken in May and June, 1942, when the Germans feared an Allied invasion in the Netherlands. babotage and resistance increased greatly at that In May, 1942, more thau 2000 professional Netherlands Army officers were reimprisoned and sent to Nuremberg, Germany, from where they were transferred a few mouths later to Silesia, 1 ohind. At the end of 1942, the Netherlands Government in London knew rhat about 8000 Dutchmen had beeu sent to concentration camps. It is a conservative estimate to say that about 2000 ot these Dutchmen died in concentration camps, this figure excluding the considerable number of Netherlands Jews who died during recent months in camps in Germany and Boland. About 00,000 Jews have been deported from Holland, so it is easy to conclude how many of them have died in the meantime. ' , , A great number ot Netherlands workers have been forcibly sent to Germany. Of these, the secret Netherlands newspaper “Free Netherlands, ’ states that it has concrete evidence that many of them were used and forcibly trained for ail kinds of sinister and semi-military purposes. , . “Free Netherlands” tells the story of a camp of 3000 Hollanders who are kept in military barracks near Cologne. They number seems to grow steadily. They are clad in brown-dyed German uniforms, wear field service caps, must salute in military fashion, must obey military laws and arc generally treated as war prisonThis camp, where the Netherlands workers find their “new order,” is sutrounded by barbed wire. Lately they have been divided into companies, in which some have been used in a bombed area Io lake over the work of tile German Labour Service. It is clear that from these camps to service behind the front line will be only one step.