CZECHS’ PASSIVE RESISTANCE

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 February 1940, Page 4

CZECHS’ PASSIVE RESISTANCE

NAZI PLANS FOILED The precautions taken by the authorities to prevent disorders in the Bohemian-Moravian protectorate have not caused the Czechs to alter theii i tactics nor is there any indication of I a change in attitude towards their' 'German overlords,’’ states the Bel-] grade correspondent of the “New Yorki Times.’’ t ■ Like the unwise conqueror in Machiavelli’s “Prince,” the German authorities, he says, “are now obliged to stand knife in hand, never able to de-J pend on his subjects because as. a result of continually fresh injuries, they are not. able to depend on him.” Within two weeks of the wave of unrests that followed the killing of five Hitler Elite Guards in Prague, a peaceful demonstration was organised in the capital, using the similarly humorous and baffling methods that since the occupation have become perfect.

It became known that one day’s receipts of the Prague street-car service would be given to the German Winter Help Fund, accordingly Czech pickets at the suburban street car terminal stood warning their followers not to use the street cars. Large bands of men, displaying their season tickets in their hats marched into the city, or grouped together to take taxis, waving contemptuously at the empty street cars.

BOYCOTT EFFECTIVE So effective was the boycott that at home the German radio station announced that the demonstration was a protest against allowing Jews to travel in street cars. The boycott, organised in the work-ing-class district, was intended to emphasise the failure of the German efforts to launch a Czech National Socialist Workers Party. This was not an isolated incident. National festivities and anniversaries of days significant in Czech history are the-occasion for great demonstrations of passive resistance throughout the protectorate and the Germans dare not risk suppressing these holidays.

Except for a small number of food riots, no serious clashes have taken place and there is no reason to think that leaders of the underground movement have changed their policy of waiting for the moment of German weakness before calling on their followers to take up arms or use large stores of explosives hidden at the time of the occupation.

The food shortage is already severe. Not. only are rations extremely meagre, but on many occasions shopkeepare are unable to supply even these. Shops have been told to reduce their daily sales 40 per cent., and many of them have closed their doors in • the morning.

Members of the German police garrison, however, are allowed to purchase unlimited quantities and the shops are especially opened for. them in the evening. Each is allowed to send to the Reich one ten-pound bundle weekly, which is paid for in marks valued at an artificially high rate. Therefore, the drain on the Czech re-, serves is great.

Weekly rations 'consist tof foilr ounces of sugar, five ounces of; butter, find one pound of meat per head. A. quarter of a pound of household

soap must last a. month, and toilet soap is obtainable only against a medical certificate. Jews have been obliged to liquidate their property and to leave the provinces for Prague, where they are relieved of some of their funds by various complicated bureaucratic measures. Those persons still trying to emigrate must give the National Bank full powers to dispose of their property. Contact, between the Czechs and Slovaks is now far more intimate than before the war. Some optimists contemplate a triune State embracing Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech .provinces.

In Slovakia itself active opposition ito the Germans is confined to the Protestants, who form almost a third of the population and who in the past were the chief sufferers from the union with the Czechs. A mania for spying and informing that followed the setting up of “Independent Slovakia” has apparently ceased. Troops are either confined to barracks or demobilised, and their demoralisation is deepened by the frequent disappearance of their officers, many of whom find their way through the Balkans to the French Army in Syria.

A number of Slovak soldiers have been sent without arms to work on Polish roads. There are many Polish prisoners of war in Slovakia and executions are frequent. At Ruzombrok two Roman Catholic priests were executed on a charge of having allowed Polish soldiers to shout from their churches.

German ruthlessness and success in Poland have created a mood of desperate bitterness in Slovakia, which more than any other part of Greater Germany is suffering from lack of food. Public money is devoted exclusively to the preparations of the German Army, although Slovakia Iras declared that her war aims have been satisfied and she feels herself to be at peace.