NEW GESTAPO DRIVE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 15 June 1942, Page 5

NEW GESTAPO DRIVE

TO SMASH PARIS RESISTANCE WOMEN STIRRING UP HOSTILITY CONSTANT ATTACKS ON GERMANS Rugby, June 13. A big new Gestapo drive to smash the underground organisations of resistance in Paris, the first details of which reached London three weeks ago, is bciSSg intensified, and is now concentrated on socalled “red belt,” the ring of work-ing-class districts on the outskirts the capital. This is revealed in the latest confidential reports of the Vichy delegation in Paris, copies of which reached the Free French headquarters to-day. These reports state that 99 arrests have been made in the last seven days. Many women, it is asserted, had been stirring up hostility toward the forces of occupation. Attacks on German military personnel or equipment had now—exactly two years after the fall of Paris —become virtually a daily occurrence. The report goes on to tell of the activities of a young French patriot, Jean Kerman, who. before his capture, had accounted for three of the Gestapo agents who were sent to arrest him. Kerman, states the report, was the leader of a gang of terrorists who were responsible for 26 attacks against the personnel or equipment of the forces of occupation between November, 1941, and March, 1942. Investigations following the arrest of Kerman led to the discovery of a complete terrorists’ arsenal in a house in Paris. The report adds that in the last six weeks more than 8000 different leaflets, slogans and posters have been produced by different “anti-national ’* groups. In cidents in Paris are numerous. FRENCH BOY HERO A story which epitomises the spirit of Free France was told by the British Air Minister. Si** Archibald Sinclair, in the course of an address to-day to children in Glasgow. The story concerned Guy Moquet, aged 17. a French boy, who was among the hostages shot in Nantes as a reprisal for the attack upon the German commanding officer. Horrified at the Germans’ shooting in cold blood a boy of 17. the wife of one of the condemned men offered herself as a substitute, but was refused. An eye-witness reported that Moquet marched bravely to the place of execution and, with his companions, sang the “Marseillaise.” He wrote a letter of goodbye, in which he stated, “My life has been very short—but I have no regrets. Of course I would like to have lived, but I can only hope with all my heart that my death will serve some purpose.”— P.A.