RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXII, Issue 89, 11 October 1941, Page 9

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION

NAZIS IN LORRAINE

MEANEST TRICKS EMPLOYED

RUGBY, October 9,

Facts about the passionate resistance to the Nazis' religious persecutions in Lorraine have just reached Free French circles in London. More than 300 priests in this region have been expelled, it is stated, and so uncompromising have they been in their refusal to collaborate that in the great city of Metz there are today only three priests, while the densely-populated, districts of Chateau Salins and Dieuze are served by one or two travelling "missionaries." The Gestapo ousted the nuns from the convents and then tried to persuade them'to teach/in Germany. The attitude of the nuns towards this ultimatum was summed up by a simple statement of a Franciscan sister who was sent to Germany and later managed to make her way back to France: "I could not teach in a German school without losing my faith." The Nazis attempt to blind French eyes to the religious persecution by blaming the Church for France's troubles, and no trick is too mean to further this end. The distribution of ration cards is arranged for Sunday mornings, when everybody would be normally at Mass, and those who do not come till later get no cards. Near Dieuze the police on one such occasion tried to prevent a funeral procession from entering a church by locking the door and saying that burials should take place without any religious service. The peasants m the procession refused to argue; they calmly went home and returned with axes and smashed in the door of the church.. . At Chateau Salins the Gestapo again tried to abolish services by locking the church, but the' officiating priest refused to be intimidated. He entered by a side door, forced the main entrance, rang the church bells, and began his sermon before a huge congregation by saying: "This is my church, and after my God and my bishop I am master here." He'spoke in French, which is strictly forbidden by the German authorities. So popular is this priest that the Gestapo is unwilling to arrest him. They are desperately afraid of creating too many martyrs.—B.O.W.