UNFIT FOR PIGS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20488, 24 February 1941, Page 5

UNFIT FOR PIGS

PRISONERS’ FOOD. FRENCHMEN’S ORDEAL WORKED LIKE HORSES CLOTHES CONFISCATED STORY OF ESCAPEE (Klee. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (British Official Wireless.) Reed. 9 a.m. RUGBY, Feb. 23. A high French officer, who was captured in Norway, but who managed to escape from Germany across the Balkans to join the Free French Forces in the Middle East, has, in a press interview, given revealing details of the treatment of French war prisoners. He said they were underfed and tire rood was not fit to eat. A French peasant, he said, would not feed his pigs with it. “It is just enough to keep one alive and not keep one in good health,” he declared. French and Polish prisoners were made to work like horses.- They worked 14 hours a day and during the lunch hour. Their clothes were confiscated. and were given to German workers. He had seen some of them made to work in the depths of winter, sockless and hatless and wearing only a cotton shirt and shorts. Every effort was being made to break down the morale by an.V British propaganda. “The Trait d’Union is published in Berlin and is edited by M. A. F. W. Doriot. Sympathisers are found among the 2,000,000 prisoners in Germany, file propaganda is such,” said the officer, “that I myself really believed the French fleet had already been handed over to Germany when I managed to escape,” .