PARISIANS HATE THE INVADERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 4 February 1942, Page 3

PARISIANS HATE THE INVADERS

s i - c j STORY OF AN ESCAPE * ‘‘Here are a few details of life in Paris 1 which I have never been able to give 1 you from the other side. The food c situation is very difficult. During August e we were only able to have meat once; the potato and rice rations were suppressed as ‘reprisals.' We were allowed two eggs a month, but had none from e November till May. Since 16th Octo--0 ber, 1940. not a spoonful of milk has 2 entered our home. No coal <3O kilos i. a month a household for all purposes, - but we were able to get this amount s only once, in January). In our flat the - temperature remained last year for 3 2 months at zero. A pipe burst in the s dining-room and a pool of ice remained _ there frozen for 3 weeks. Gas is ration s ed. too. so we can only have one bath - a month. “All this is nothing compared to the i moral torture. . . The whole city is L - entirely silent. After 7 p.m. not a s noise is heard. Nobody goes out, I nothing but the sound of the heavy German boots on the pavement, but one - can almost feel the throbbing, the intense hatred, that is smouldering everyj where against them. n ‘The entire population in the oc- “ cupied zone is pro-British. Nothing can illustrate it better than this episode. b When four months ago your RAF heavily bombarded the electric plant at Lens (in the northern mining district). ' seven workmen got killed, and one of 1 your planes was shot down and the 1 three airmen were killed. s “Two days later they buried the seven • workmen, and the day after the Bri - f tish airmen, and the burial ceremony i was presided over by the seven widows s of the workmen in full mourning. A - spontaneous gesture of eloquence, don't. ? you think?’’ —(Letter received in Lon r don from a Parisian woman who escap ? ed from France in October, and pub - 1 lished in the “Sunday Times").