“STARVED,” SAY PRISONERS RELEASED BY REBELS

Northern Advocate, 31 May 1937, Page 5

“STARVED,” SAY PRISONERS RELEASED BY REBELS

“Good Treatment” Story A Lie (United Press Association.— By Electric Telegraph. — Copyright .3 (Received 2 p.m.) PARIS, May 30. “I’d like to push that lie down the throat of whoever said it,” said Bert Levy, a Canadian, who was one of a group of British prisoners released by the rebels in an exchange arrangement, on his arrival at Hendaye, over the border~from Spain. He had been questioned about a rebel statement that the prisoners were well treated. He continued: “We were starved. We were

covered with, vermin and had no water to clean ourselves. We were forced to sleep on the ground. Ten of my comrades died of lung trouble.” A Glasgow man, John Montgomery, confirmed Levy’s statement. {Foreign ex-militia men released by Franco, totalling 45 and including 23 Britons, were landed at Bordeaux says “The Times’ ” correspondent there. One Englishman was captured at Telavera, where 540 of his battalion of 600 were killed. Months In Filthy Prison.

A Frenchman captured in the Madrid fighting, said: i “I lay for months in a filthy prison and was maltreated. An officer entered every night and took out men to be shot and buried by a fatigue party. ; *‘We were mustered in the prison yard a week ago while General Franco’s brother braggingly extolled Fascism and announced our liberation. We did not believe 8 him, because men had been taken out,and shot the same night, as usual. 1 Forced To Cheer For Rebels.

“However, two days later, we were, crammed into cars and taken to Salamanca Prison where, with other captives, we were filmed and forced to say before a microphone, “We become Fascists,” and to cheer for the rebel cause. Apparently we were liberated on the instructions of the Italian Fascist Propaganda Committee. Other accounts corroborate the story. The exchanged German airmen Schulze-Planck and Kienzle, captured by the loyalists, arrived today at St. Jean de Luz, France, on the French gunboat, Audacieuse.

Heavy Casualties In Barcelona

(Received 10 a.m.) VALENCIA, May 29. Seventy-one people were killed and 100 injured in an insurgent air raid on Barcelona. Six planes participated in the raid, which lasted half an hour. The attackers circled round the city at a great height. Of those killed, 30 were in two houses. Many buildings were shattered. Later, the rebel airmen extensively bombed the neighbouring towns of Santa Barbara and Badlona, killing 60 people and wounding 50. Later the raiders returned to Barcelona and attacked the working class district.