SPIRIT OF BELGIUM

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 28 May 1942, Page 4

SPIRIT OF BELGIUM

VANQUISHED. NOT SUBMISSIVE TALK OF OUSTIN'ATI-. KKSISTANI K lIKSC RII’TION BV CONS I I. GENERAL "The weeks of warfare were terrible; the defeat was devastating; but what is happening now cannot be* expressed in words.” These words were quoted by M. Armande Nihotb*. Con-sul-General for Belgium, yesterday, as the opinion of any Belgian- Fleming or Walloon—of how thing, were going to-day in occupied Belgium. M. I Nihotte was speaking at the monthly ! luncheon of the Wellington Returned Services’ Association, at which he was the principal guest. The picture painted by M. Nihotte was of hospitals overflowing with cases of starvation, oedema and tuben - culosis; of schools closed at 11 o’clock in the morning because :■» many of the children fainted; <»1 plump rats bringing two and three shillings each in tne markets of Bru elr; and of a profound and irreparable iin- ' pairing of the health of a whole Bel--1 gian generation. I Yet there was on inspiring dc l<> ; the tale of Belgium under the hated Nazi yoke. The people resisted the Boche just as their King, a prisoner | of war, resisted by his uncompromisI ing attitude and by his obstinate silI ence, both of which he had never ceased to oppose to all the advances of the enemy by his refusal to exercise his sovereign functions. They resisted also like the clergy, from Cardinal Roey, worthy successor of Cardinal Mercier, down to the lower clerics like the cure of St. Albert Church, Brussels, who, condemned to 20 years’ imprisonment for having distributed the clandestine “Libre Belgique,” cried at the moment the sentence: “Long Live Great Britain.” They resisted, too, like the Burgomaster of Brussels. Van de Meulcbroeck, another Burgomaster Max, who. having been dismissed by the Germans, had posters plastered on the walls of the city: “I am, I remain, and I shall remain, the only lawful Burgomaster pf Brussels.” He, needless to add. was in an internment camp. They resisted and they defier! like their judges and magistrates, as in this instance: German propaganda posters showing a caricature ol Mr Churchill were posted bv the Germans on the walls of Brussels. The , Procurateurs-Gencral, in accordance | with a Belgian law forbidding in- | suits to the heads of friendly States. arrested the person who printed and j published the posters. As a result, the j Germans stepped in, and in their turn , arrested the Procurateurs-General of j Brussels. Malines. Louvain and Charleroi. They resisted also by forcing their 1 way, despite strict prohibition, to at 1 tend the funerals of British and Allied ’ airmen who fell on Belgian soil. They ‘ formed guards of honour with lingers upraised in the “V” sign, and they brought wreaths and kept the grave. J covered with flowers. Daily. Belgian patriots ran the risk 1 of death or imprisonment for having attacked Germans, for listening to the 1 8.8. C., for helping British soldiers or - airmen who were still at large, for j arson, for sabotage, or for no reason ■ at all other than that they had been 1 taken as hostages. “Vanquished perhaps, submissive 1 never!” said M. Nihotte. quoting the r words hurled at the 1914 ’invader by ' ■ Count Charles dc Broqueville, the then * Prime Minister. “Those words remain - to-day the slogan of occupied, but un--1 conquered Belgium.”