APPALLING CRUELTY

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

APPALLING CRUELTY

GERMANS IN CRETE

LOOTING AND MASSACRE

OFFICIAL ACCOUNT

(Rec. 11 a.m.)' RUGBY, Oct. 10 The Prime Minister (Mr. Winston Churchill) has received from M. Tsouderos, the Greek Prime Minister, an account of German atrocities in Crete which has been, forwarded from Cairo by the Greek War Minister. Mr. Churchill has expressed his honor at the atrocities perpetrated by the Germans. \ The message from Cairo says that ! after the capture of Crete, the ! German army burned to the ground the villages of. Skine, Prasse, and Kandanos. Their sites are marked by posters bearing an inscription saying that there once stood Skine, Prasse, or Kandanos. The Germans looted every single house and store in the towns and villages, leaving them empty of every, single object. They proceeded to commit innumerable murders "of people who were flying for safety in the open country, of children, and of old people who were asleep in their homes', and to carry out collective executions after summary parodies ox a trial. ' ■■.'.'"' A COMMON GRAVE. The condemned people were forced to dig their common grave before execution. At Kystona, three men who were wounded during the evacuation were buried while still alive., Their families were' forced to offer* dinner to the murderers of their own husbands, fathers, and brothers, and to suffer the mocking jests of the feasting Germans. The cure of Roumaton, as well as the abbot and monks of the Monastery of Aghia Gonda, were put to death. The altar of the Church of Manolio was desecrated by, the Germans. The surviving inhabitants, some 800 women and children from Lower, Cydonia; were seen being marched, through the Retimo district,, and a police sergeant at Ipiatzakis was tortured to death, his limbs being wrenched off one by one with the object of forcing him to denounce the holders of German rifles. ; KILLED ONE BY ONE. At Erivalia, in the Retimo" district, people were executed one by one, in the presence of others also condemned to death and of their relatives, after having been forced to dig their owa graves. At Heraclion the prefect was executed and Colonel Tsatsaronakis met the same fate because he tried to help those persecuted to escape. In the same place, five more Greeks were executed because they failea to declare that they knew German. According to the available information, the number of . executions a Canea totalled 506, in Retimo district 130 Ld in Heraclion 50. The mate popuSion of the island .especially ■mi western Crete, has taken to the moun-1 tains in arms. ACCOUNTS ACCEPTED. \ The -message is signed «S Dimtraka* kis, Minister of War." The _ Greefc* MiAister of Information stated in London today that the resistance of tftei Cretans to the Germans has been very; SSKiabte. particularly ***meuH tains, where guerrilla bands are stiU active. These included British«g Dominion troops who had escaped tj the mountains at the- • time of tne •srssas^sSd**«.« ment was completely satisfied with thj authenticity of the accounts of tn# German atrocities.-8.0.W. i