REIGN OF TERROR

New Zealand Herald, Volume 78, Issue 24085, 2 October 1941, Page 9

REIGN OF TERROR

BULGARS APE GERMANS OPPRESSION OF GREEKS HUMILIATIONS IMPOSED (Reed. 0.30 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 1 Reports from Ankara say thai; a reign of terror began in Bulgaria at the week-end when arrests and executions followed further acts of sabotage in Sofia and villages on the Yugoslav frontier. A special tribunal had been established for treason trials. An Englishman, Norman Davis, and the Bulgarian Peasant Party leader, George Dirnitroff, arc among the accused. Over 200 so-called Communists hare been arrested in Bulgaria, according to one report from Ankara. They are said to include nearly 100 who were arrested in a cinema in Sofia for hissing a German war film. The Vichy radio says that in Varna 844 arrests have been made. As evidence of the thoroughness with which the Bulgarians are emulating German methods in occupied countries, the Cairo correspondent of the Daily Telegraph says the Bulgars have imported Bulgarian people into occupied Thrace and Macedonia and the Greeks have been compelled to go to southern Greece or remain under humiliating conditions. The Greeks in these areas must change their names into the Bulgarian forms. All shop names and notices are now in Bulgarian. Fines are imposed on anyone speaking Greek in public. Church services must be in the Bulgarian language. The Metropolitans of Koniotini and Alexandroupolis have been removed irom their sees and taken to Salonika. Bulgarians also flogged to death a Greek priest and four civilians charged with concealing arms in the village of Carianis. near Struma. A subsequent search for the alleged arms revealed that they did not exist. In the meantime arrests continue in t ranee. The Lyons radio stated that 28 Communists were arrested in Arras and sent to the district concentration camp, making the total there 250. It is reported from Paris that the Germans shot another Frenchman for possessing arms. Nine patients at a sanatorium near Paris were arrested j for distributing Communist leaflets.

FORMER RHODES SCHOLAR PARENTS IN DUNEDIM RECENT SERVICE IN SOFIA (0.C.) DUNEDIN, "Wednesday The report that an Englishman named Norman Davis has been charged with treason in Bulgaria recalls the fact that Mr. Norman Davis, son of Mr. and Mrs. J. Davis, of Dunedin, and a former Rhodes Scholar, was a resident of Sofia for three years. For 12 months he was a teacher of English at the University of Sofia. On the outbreak of the war he was transferred to the British Legation, where he was attached to the Press Bureau. The German penetration of Bulgaria forced him to leave that country and. after a series of adventures, he arrived safely at Gibraltar. The most recent advice from Mr. Davis was that he had arrived in the | Middle East and that, in future, he j would not be able to disclose his movements.

EXECUTED GENERALS

ALLEGATIONS OF TREASON APPEAL BY PATRIOT RADIO (Rerd. 11.16 pm.) LONDON. Oct. 1 The German news agency has issued a statement giving the reason for the shooting of the two Czech retired generals, Bily and Votja, and others who were shot on Monday. Jt says that the generals were leading members of a Czech group which tried to re-establish an independent Czech State by cutting Bohemia and Moravia from the protectorate by force. Two of the other persons executed were charged with being members of a group which had systematically gathered firearms for use against the Germans in event of revolution. Other charges against those executed wore that they were preparing acts of high treason or were Communists. The Moscow radio says that a bomb was thrown into the Gestapo headquarters and that the Prague prison, where the Czech leaders were imprisoned, was also attacked. Moscow claims to have picked up a broadcast from an illegal Czech radio station calling itself "National Unity," in which it stirringly called upon the Czech people to organise a general strike throughout the country as a protest against the terrorism of Heydrich.

MOCKED BY GERMANS <

STARVING GREEK PEOPLE "FOOD SHORTAGE IS GREAT" LONDON, Sept. 28 "The Germans mock Greek bread queues by throwing them pieces of bread from balconies." This is an extract from a letter from a neutral friend to a Greek resident in London. He says:— "The food shortage is great. Prices are fantastic —the price of meat has risen tenfold, tish fivefold, olive oil threefold. sugar sixfold, potatoes twentyfold when obtainable. "Every day 600 die from starvation. "Gorman troops feed in the restaurants, not in military messes, and are billeted in private houses, which are frequently looted. "German soldiers stop people and demand their jewellery, and the Athens police are advising people to surrender their valuables without complaining "Though the food shortage is great, German ships loaded with Greek wheat leave Piraeus for an unknown destination, "A cigarette famine prevails, as the German soldiers buy boxes at six drachme and resell them to the black market at 20 drachme. The black market then retails them at 30. "Athens is full of British soldiers hidden by Greeks, who thus risk the death penalty. Wounded British receive treatment in Greek hospitals in the confident knowledge that the doctors and nurses will not betray them. "Guerilla warfare is greatest in Crete, whore the Germans travel only in large parties. In a recent raid on the Crete town of Canea. guerillas captured a German court-martial consisting of a colonel, several olficers and 60 men, who are now held as hostages for German good behaviour."