FEEDING OF EUROPE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 50, 28 February 1942, Page 8

FEEDING OF EUROPE

GERMANS FIRST

LONDON, February.26,

A deplorable food, position in the occupied European countries is revealed in a. statement which has been issued by/the Allied Governments in London, who declare that the starvation, that is prevalent is largely due to the requisitioning of food for the occupying, troops and for maintaining Germany, and the rations to the German soldiers and to officials supplying the "black markets."

The survey covers the principal occupied nations. The deficit in essential foods in Belgium, it states, is 60 per cent, for adults and adolescents and 50 per cent, for expectant mothers. On the "black market" cats cost 125 francs each; and the cheapest dog meat 50 francs a pound.The Germans in Czecho-Slovakia have confiscated the nation's reserve of 750,000 tons of grain, and also butter and other fats. Many death sentences have been imposed for rationing offences. Food trains go to Germany every day from France, but the French townspeople are starving. The quislings in occupied France are rewarded with the ration cards of dead people. The mortality .of Parisian children under nine years of age has increased by 29 per cent. STARVATION IN GREECE. In November deaths from starvation in Greece increased to a daily average of 450. The infantile mortality is the nation's scourge. Butter, oil fats, meat, cheese, sugar, fish, and salt are unobtainable, except on the "black market" at twelve times the preinyasion prices. Bread, the chief diet, is rationed to two ounces a day, and is sometimes unobtainable for a fortnight. Axis,officers sell requisitioned food for their own profit. The meat ration in Holland is. onethird of the normal consumption. Nearly all animals and poultry are going to Germany. -German soldiers operate a "black market" in Norway.; Unlimited, rations have been given to thousands of German women, mostly expectant mothers, who have arrived in the Oslo region. German and quislingite restaurants get larger supplies than the others.

Because of the large concentration of troops, i the food situation in Poland is becoming worse. The Polish inhabita ts get 680 calories a day and the Jews 400 calories, compared with the medical minimum standard of 2400 calories. The Poles in the incorporated territory are not allowed to buy butter, eggs, rolls, cream, sugar, sweets, or fruit.

The Germans in Yugoslavia pay for their food with valueless occupation marks andyon "requisition receipts." Bread queues begin at dawn. German officers organise the "black markets," and at the same time severely punish complainants for "impugning the honour" of the German army.