BARBARISM IN NAPLES

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVI, Issue 86, 8 October 1943, Page 5

BARBARISM IN NAPLES

FIVE-DAY GERMAN TERROR

Rec. noon,

LONDON, October 7,

Police and Red Cross workers in Naples estimate that about 800 persons were killed and thousands wounded" during the five-day German terror in the city.

One of the Germans' last barbaricacts before leaving Naples was to seize 200 Italians at random from different houses and make them .kneel in the square and shout "Heil Hitler," says Reuter's correspondent in Naples. The Germans then selected two Italian sailors and four soldiers, lined them up against the wall of the Naples Stock Exchange, and shot them. The correspondent adds that over half a million civilians are wandering through the city like lost souls, looking for water. Men, women, and children, carrying large jars and bottles, and even bath tubs, form long queues in thousands at water points which the Germans destroyed and which have been temporarily fixed. Some of the water supply lines to Naples are expected to be opened shortly, and although the main electrical power station was destroyed Allied naval and army experts have already temporarily laid on power. Nevertheless, for some days Naples faces a grim period. An Italian captain of marines told the Reuter correspondent that on the last two days before the Germans cleared out of Naples even poor Italian people attacked the Germans with rifles, pistols, and knives. Italian youths threw grenades into the Germans' lodgings. At least 100 civilians are believed to have been killed by a time-bomb which exploded in the Naples post office while it was being reopened to the public, says a message from Naples today. An entire section of the post office collapsed after the explosion, burying victims in the debris. The casualties included soldiers.

The Catholic newspaper "Universe," published in London, quotes a report that the Germans are speeding up preparations for the demolition of Rome on a grand scale. Moreover, the Germans are apparently making preparations to wage a fierce battle to keep a stranglehold on Rome, which for their own purposes they have until now been insisting is an open city.