OCCUPIED FRANCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 19 October 1942, Page 5

OCCUPIED FRANCE

Widespread Disturbances FORCED LABOUR FOR GERMANY Many Persons Killed and Injured London, Oct. 16 Assassinations and attacks on Germans and German sympathisers are spreading in occupied France according to reports reaching Vichy. There have been many deaths and a large number of injured in riots and disturbances. Following serious disorders al Lyons strikes are spreading through occupied France. The Swiss radio reports that National Guards at St. Etienne were forced to clear a number of factories, while at Grenoble and Chambery further workers are on strike Reports from the French frontier state that 10,000 men are already involved in mass strikes and tension is growing in the Lyons area, to which large numbers of Gestapo agents have been drafted More than 100 are at present searching for secret radio stations at Charbonnieres, six miles from Lyons. Other agents have arrived at Crepieux le Pape, north-east of Lyons, and Cessieu, west of Latourdupin. Agents are equipped with French identity cards and granted the same powers as French detectives. French police and inspectors have been ordered to place themselves at the agents’ disposal.

The railway station at Lyons was the scene of an explosion. Carriages for j workers being taken to Germany were; destroyed. It is also reported that French fron-| tier guards have been strengthened to prevent workers for Germany fleeing. | The “Daily Express” correspondent j on the French frontier says Lyons, ( Chambery and Amberieu are the principal centres of disorder. Riots broke out in these places on 15th October, when the names of the men chosen for labour in Germany were exhibited. Workers at Chambery refused to move the trains and rioters at Amberieu | destroyed rolling stock and locomotives. Fighting with police and bomb-throw- \ ing occurred in centres where workers struck and demonstrated in the streets. Troops were called out and used grenades against the crowds. Troops afterwards occupied factories, stations and municipal buildings and patrolled the streets with armoured cars. Women at Annecy paraded with placards, “We won’t let our husbands go to Germany.” The correspondent of “The Times” on the French frontier says 40 were killed and, 200 wounded at Lyons and . 15 were killed and 200 wounded at Amberieu. Disturbances are also reported at Marseilles, Toulouse and Tarbes. The Vichy news agency admits that strikes occurred at railway workshops in the Lyons region “apparently owing to an erroneous interpretation of conditions under which recruiting of labour in exchange for war prisoners is being carried out.” and adds that work was resumed normally after several * hours on the intervention of local authorities and the Government without serious incident. Vichy radio said three trainloads of French workers from both occupied and unoccupied France, including women. | left for Germany last night. The wo men came from a weaving mill near Angere, in north-western France, from which both men and women have been drafted. More women have been drafted from the same mill.

SABOTAGE CONTINUING Reports from Paris state that sabotage is continuing throughout the country. Crops, grain and storehouses are being burned. The Germans are now combing every factory in France for skilled workers. Employers have been instructed to prepare batches, including engineers and works managers, in the hope that the present resistance to the departure of men to Germany may be overcome if men from the same factory work together in Germany. FEELING AGAINST LAVAL REGIME The Swiss newspaper “Tribune de Lausanne” says: “Feeling is very high at the Laval Government’s attempts to provide Germany with manpower. They are meeting with tenacious opposition, which it would be foolish to ignore if the situation among our neighbours beyond Jura is sensibly judged.” Dr. Boening, German commissar for manpower in Holland, demanded 70,000 skilled Dutch workers for Germany to reinforce 300,000 Dutch already in Germany. Thirty thousand skilled Dutch metal workers were removed from their jobs last month and sent to Germany. Skilled Dutchmen are conscripted by a German foreman appointed to Dutch undertakings as “trustee” for the workmen. Skilled workers are being replaced by unskilled part-time workers and unemployed, of which Boening estimates there are still 100,000. The New York “Herald Tribune’s” Washington correspondent says every town in France has completed blacklists of persons who will be killed on the day of France’s liberation, and 1,000,000 Frenchmen will be slaughtered unless preventive action is taken, asserted Andre Philip, Commissioner of the Interior with the French National Committee. He said he believed a civil ! war could be averted only if General j de Gaulle. leader of the Fighting i French, makes a direct personal appeal \ to the French people to refrain from private vengeance when United Nations’ forces land in France.—P.A.

NOT TO MIX WITH DANES

NEW ORDER FOR GERMAN OFFICERS (Rec. 10.55 a.m.) London, Oct. 18. General Hannecke, the new German military commander in Denmark, has forbidden German officers any social contact with the Danes. This regulation

is being applied so drastically that it is even breaking up families in the cases of mixed marriages.—P.A. NORWEGIAN SABOTEURS ARRESTED (Rec. 10.55 a.m.) London, Oct. 18. Many workers have been arrested after new acts of sabotage in several industrial centres in the neighbourhood of Oslo. —P.A.

NAZI MESSAGE TO CZECHS

FUTURE BEHAVIOUR WILL DECIDE FATE WAYS MUST BE HEEDED AND MENDED (Rec. 10.45 a.m.) London, Oct. 18. j Karl Hermann Frank, German Sec- | retary of State, at the renaming of! the Moldau district in Prague, the ! “Reichard Heydrich Embankment.” i said: “Ancient history and national socialism alike recognise that Bohemia and Moravia cannot exist without the Reich. Our task is to win back both provinces mentally and spiritually for the Reich. The life and deeds of Heydrich should be an admonition for the Czechs to take heed and mend their ways. How the Czechs behave now will decide their fate. The blood of guiltiness which burdens the Czechs is so vast that it can only be expiated when Heydrich’s political testament is executed. If we have dealt severely toith the Czech educated classes it is because 90 per cent, of the enemies of the Reich belong to those classes.”

j According to Vichy radio Frank also said the close relatives of Czech agi- ; tators who had taken refuge in London had been rounded up and interned in concentration camps. “I warn Czechs j against the new appeals to insurrection I and sabotage now being launched froir London,” he added. —P.A, AFTER THE WAR GREAT HELP NEEDED I STORY OF SABOTAGE ONE OF HEROISM ; (Rec. 10.20 a.m.) Rugby, Oct. 18. The story of sabotage in occupied countries was a story of magnificent heroism, declared Mr Arthur Greeni wood, Minister without Portfolio, : speaking at Birmingham to-day. He added that help for those countries i would be needed on a huge scale after ; the war and together we would have to make certain the same tragedy did ' not occur in Europe again. Germany ‘ would have to be deprived of the power I to obtain war potential by rationing on i a peacetime basis. They must not be allowed to put their raw materials into : civil aircraft which in a twinkling of an eye could be turned into heavy L bombers. => Mr Greenwood declared that all our » commitments must be fulfilled after the - war as far as humanly possible. He - warned against thinking too lightly of i the coming months. It was going to be c a pretty difficult struggle although 1 there could be only one end to the war -—B.O. W. t