BELGIAN REFUGEES IN MELBOURNE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLV, Issue XLVIII, 19 December 1914, Page 5

BELGIAN REFUGEES IN MELBOURNE

TRUTH OF GERMAN ATROCITIES. There arrived in Melbourne a few days ao-o two Belgian refugees who left Antwerp shortly before its occupation by the Germans. Both are comparatively young men, and one, a professional violinist, named De Bly, is accompanied by his wife and child.' They tell tragic stories of the German atrocities which have hpirified the world (says the Melbourne "\£re") and speak with enthusiasm ot the treatment the fleeing Belgians received at the hands of the Dutch people. Their description of their last night spent in beleaguered Antwerp is munificent of the horrors of the Black J ,o of Calcutta. With somo fifty or ,ixty others they passed the lon £ h .mrs darkness in

a basement only a few feet sq\iare, crushed together, and unable to move their limbs. Ovei'head the shells screamed, and now and then there would come an ear-splitting explosion as a bomb, dropped from an airship overhead, found its mark. The next day the eity was evacuated, and when the Germans entered they found scarcely enough food to feed one soldier. Mr De Bly states that most of the people wore successful in finding a hiding place for their valuables, so that the extent of tho German loot was minimised. In the flight from Antwerp great hardships were experienced, and for seven hours they were herded together in a freight train, covering a distance usually traversed in half an hour During those hours they witnessed heartrending scenes. The massacre of the whole population of the town of Aarshot, owing to the shooting of a German officer by the son of the burgomaster in defence of his sister's honour is vouched for by the refugees, who state that it is tho invariable practice that if one German sokliar is shot the whole population is made to suffer. It is the habit of the Germans to pay for food and clothing in orders marked "to be paid for after tho war." One Belgian who ventured to ask who would honour the orders if Germany was defeated was incontinently shot dead.

As illustrating the kindness of the Dutch people to their suffering neighhours, Mr de Bly said that in one hefur homes were found for over 2000 Belgian children in Rotterdam. In conversation with Dutch soldiers while in Holland he was told by more than one that rather than fight on the side of Germany they would take their own lives.