THE NETHERLANDS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 80, 12 May 1945, Page 6

THE NETHERLANDS

RUINED BY THE NAZIS REPARATION IN KIND? After several broadcasts from Lpndon in which he told the world of the plight of his country, Pieter C. Gerbrandy, Prime Minister of the Netherlands, recently flew to Holland with several members of his cabinet. His personal observation and firsthand contact with people who had .iust returned from what was the occupied area confirmed that even the darkest picture of conditions in German-held territory barely approaches the facts. Day by day, while there was a slow but steady improvement in the three freed provinces, things grew worse in the remaining part of the land. Since the beginning of the general transportation strike on 17th September, writes Joseph W. F. Stoppelman in the “Christian Science Monitor,” more than 120,000 Netherlands men and boys were rounded up by the Nazi police, both in the towns and in the country, for war work inside the Reich. Plunder continued systematically. With or without reason, the Germans staged public executions everywhere. T he harbours of Rotterdam —that immense port which once was one of the main income sources for the whole country —have been destroyed. In every corner of the occupied area villages have been razed, because of resistance —passive or active—on the part of their inhabitants.

Chased from their homesteads, because of the German flooding “for purposes of defence,” often left without shelter or adequate food or heat, some 7,000,000 Netherlanders are exposed to the severities of winter.

North and south of Amsterdam, throughout the province of South Holland and Gelderland (the fertile Betuwe region), and in the south-western province of Zegland the Nazis turned ipore than 1,000,000 acres of arable and pasture land iqto dreary lakes and stagnant swamps. Here and there the inhabitants cling to their sodden soiltrying to save some of their cattle and belongings. The Germans, in retreat, destroyed dykes and windmills and sluices, comparatively little will be left of western Holland’s most fertile soil. During these winter months the voices of Allied leaders have been heard repeatedly, warning the Nazis to halt their rampage. But the Gerynans paid scant attention to such warnings. One of the first problems which will now face the Netherlands Government is that of finding living space and employment for several million evacuees, at present packed into a densely populated sector of Holland. But where to turn for that million or more arable acres? Where to discover the industries in non-flooded territory capable of absorbing such hordes of labourers? As things are, many of the factories in non-flooded areas hgve been robbed of most, if not all, their machinery. To bring these plants back into production will be a gigantic task in itself, the more so as practically all new equipment wili have to be acquired from abroad.

Only a small percentage of evacuees from flooded regions will bp able to make a living in other sections of the country. Most of them would remain idle, and—-in the end —require public assistance. Or they would have to emigrate in hundreds of thousands. Neither of these “solutions” is acceptable. They would mean the irreparable impoverishment of the country. And so there appears only one way out: the yielding to the Netherlands of sufficient German territory to enable the restoration of its economic balance, and the rehabilitation of its 9,000,000 citizens.

It spems of little importance, at the moment, whether this be an outright annexation, or a “loan” for a prearranged number of years. That, no doubt, will be a matter of most serious discussion at the peace table. The fact is that the Dutch as a nation, in order to survive, must find sufficient soil on which to live and work, and plants in which to manufacture the stockpiles of* articles that will enable them to regain their place in the international commodity market. It is desirable that such a strip of German land, whether broad or nar-

row, should offer conditions as nearly as possible identical with those to which the despoiled Netherlanders were used before the catastrophe. They should be placed upon a soil of the kind they knew; and the climate should be as nearly as possible that of the Dutch regions they have been forced to leave. The most suitable German locality for this Dutch rehabilitation process seems to be the one adjoining Holland's eastern borderline: East. Frisia (Ost Frieslandb the Ruhr valley and—perhaps*—the northern peak of the Rhine T land. In this way the Dutch, whether they would have to be considered “new settlers” or only “temporarily displaced persons.” would find surroundings fairly familiar to them. Even those in the industrial area would meet with conditions not completely foreign. Several years of forced labpur under the impetus of the Nazi whip have, in fact, made this region only too well known to the majority of them. To shift a few million people from one corner of Germany to another should not prove too hard a problem for the Reich. The Germans have shown themselves experts in the art of mass migration as applied to nonTeutonic and non-Aryan subjects; it is, therefore, fair to enable them to display their dexterity once more after the war—this time with their own citizens in the role *of the emigrants. On various occasions members of the Netherlands Government in London have expressed themselves clearly on this subject. Foreign Minister Eelco N. van Kleffens, in “Foreign Affairs’* of July, 1944, and as late as last October, in a broadcast to the occupied Netherlands, emphasised that as yet no definite demand for German territory has been made. But in the name of the Dutch nation the right has been reserved to claim an attachment of German land so that, he explained, the Dutch people may conclude for themselves whether such a claim will be justified by the results of German behaviour within Holland during its occupation. Prime Minister Gerbrandy reiterated this point of view in interviews and iq broadcasts, both to Hollaqd and the United States, the gist of his declarations being: “It will be up to the Dutch people to decide, in conjunction with our allies.” But in a press conference with American and British war correspondents, held somewhere in the southern Netherlands during his visit, the Prime Minister added significantly': “One must certainly look toward the egst for compensations.” The feet is that the annexation—or even the “loan” —of German territory is by no means looked upon, among the Dutch, as an ideal solution. Throughout the centuries Holland’s only “annexation” has been that of reclaiming land from the ocean which, on the north and west, nibbles unceqs T ingly at its territory. But now there seems no choice left. To atone in some measure for the incalculable harm done to the soil of the 'Netherlands’ and to several million of its citizens will h e well nigh impossible for Germany unless she yields, an acre of sound and qgable ground for eve*y acre spoilt and soured by Nazi vandalism.