BLOOD OF MARTYRS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 25 October 1941, Page 5

BLOOD OF MARTYRS

SEED OF EUROPE’S LIBERTY Rugby, Oct. 23. Commenting on the shooting of French hostages as a reprisal for the assassination of German officers in occupied France. "The Times” says:. "The practice of indiscriminate massi ere to avenge an individual assassination is characteristic of the German military methods.” The paper then refers to the other German-occupied countries, where no less brutal acts of repression and avowed terrorism are being perpetrated by the Nazi authorities. “Heydrich is even now conducting similar massacres in Prague, though Ihe seems to be acting on a general ! terroristic principle rather than in reply to any specific attack on the Gorlina ns. Stulpnagcl lias been doing the | same thing in Paris. There is an 'orgy of killing in Yugoslavia, where j the Germans are shooting the prisonj ers taken in the guerrilla campaign. Other countries have seen their citizens i hurried away to death or prison and [ stamped with some convenient label I such as Communist or saboteur. I “These barbarities will excite the ! horror and reprobation of the civilised j world. They also defeat their own end. I The persecutors of old found that ‘the j blood of the martyrs is the seed of the [Church.’ The modern persecutors will [ find that the blood of the martyrs is the ! seed of liberty.”—B.O.W.