FORCED LABOUR

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 July 1939, Page 11

FORCED LABOUR

GIRLS ON GERMAN FARMS

A great number of young Germans, chiefly girls under 25 years of age, are being' drafted’ for work regarded by Nazi authorities’ as of State and political importance, cables Sigrid Schultz from Berlin, to the “Chicago l Tribune.” Under a decree issued! by Field-Mar-shal Hermann} Wilhelm Goering, as chief of the Nazi Four-Year Plan for economic independence, authorities are'

jinpuwered to conscript eve'ry ablebodied’ German for work. The penalty for failure to comply 'with the' order is l six months in prison.

Many of the girls summoned' to the labour exchanges protested in vain and sometimes in tears ;|gains’t the work allotted to them. In most cases it was agricultural work cr labour in armament factories.

Some of the girls held comparatively well-paying jobs as stenographers or as domestic servants. They were unwilling to change these occupationsfor jobs as farm helpers l with pay of 11 dollars (£2/15/-) a. week, not counting deductions for taxes, social' insuraii'co fee, and erst of transportation.

Since (ho farm jobs allotted/ to the girls were for the most part some distance awaj" from their homes, transportation fares represent a considerable deduction in pay.

One girl pleaded that she was to be married in three weeks. She and the other girls, who protested against the ■work given them, were told by labour exchange officials that they were' lia.b'e to the maximum sentence of six months in prison and confiscation of their labour book. This would make it impossible for them to accept a new job. The Reich Labour Trustee of Brandenburg ruled 'that wages of stenographers may net be increased unless

they get less than £9/15/- a month. If a stenographer takes another joh .her new employer is l forbidden to raise her salary until after she has worked six months. A Berlin! Court fined an employer £BO for increasing the pay of his staff without permission of the authorities.