BELGIUM'S SCARS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25052, 16 November 1944, Page 3

BELGIUM'S SCARS

LEGACY FROM NAZI OCCUPATION

APPALLING SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCES From a Woman Correspondent in Brussels

Brussels is a place of fearful contrasts. Here, in a city where every street corner now has its barrow laden with hothouse grapes and flowers, the people are suffering severely from shortages of essential foods and are facing a winter of privations. Behind the gaiety with which they are celebrating thenliberation are almost unbelievable stories of physical and mental torment.

Thousands of those little papercovered books, well-printed, illustrated and designed to present German literature and thought to the Belgian people, are still piled up in odd corners hore. Now they feel they have four years of world affairs with which to catch up. As yet 110 English books have reached Brussels, so every British soldier —helped by his Anglo-French dictionary—is being asked to give rulings on subjects he probably had not thought about until ho came here.

Small boys and girls—all wearing an assorted collection of army and air force flashes on their sleeves—take their phrase books along to the cafes and to hospital bedsides, and act as tutors. It is very charming to see them.. The matron of an 11. A.F. hospital hero has had to fix visiting days because she and her small staff could not cope with the Belgian visitors who turned up every day with flowers and fruit for R.A.F. patients. Once an entire girls' school arrived, begging to see 110 special patient, but just a patient, any patient. "Wo felt like prima donnas," an R.A.F. pilot said. "I will go hack to that hospital at any time."

These contrasts are frightening. British soldiers, dazzled at nrsfc by shops filled with perfumes, laces, trinkets and all other things which Britain has sacrificed for munitions, now realise these luxuries conceal an inner devastation which is Belgium's legacy from the German occupation. '

They are also beginning to see that the incredibly generous reception which the Belgian people gave them was drawn from their reserves, and that all this warmth of friendship, given to anyone in an Allied uniform, hides appalling spiritual experiences which no Englishman, in spite of German bombing, can quite understand. Food Shortage Belgium presents a picture the exact reverse of tlmt presented by Great Britain and other countries who have devoted their national effort to winning the war. You can buy electric refrigerators and all kinds of kitchen gadgets from electric mixers to cotfeo strainers here, but you cannot buy eggs or egg powder, coffee or tea. Every British soldier who has children in England has spent hours of his Brussels leave gazing into shop windows filled with wonderful toys for children. He knows now that if he had to choose he would rather his children had their rations than these toys, just as knows the Belgian honsewife ; with her month's soap ration of one small tublot with the performance and consistency of sandstone, would willingly exchange all these perfumes by Patou for the British housewives' not ovcr-genorous soap allowance. For four years Germany has controlled all Belgian imports and exports, taken her home products and returned only the poorest and smallest- possible quantities of barley, potatoes and salt. A Belgian who gave up his post at the Belgian Ministry of Food Supplies to work with the resistance movement said: "The Germans went through the shops like a vacuum cleaner. We never saw a German soldier without a parcel." They bought up all the fruit _ and vegetables which this season are giving Brussels its false appearance of luxury and plenty. Black Market a Necessity It was not only patriotic then for Belgians to buy on the black market; it was a necessity. The foreign editor of La Derniere Heure, which ceased publication during the German occupation, said ho personally was in debt to black market dealers for 36.000 francs. All journalists he knew owed about the same amount. He and others to whom I have talked in Brussels told mo of ,the elaborate system which kept food from Germans so that it could be. sold to Belgians—at a price. They believe that these illicit measures, which were regarded as virtues during the German occupation, will be difficult to stamp out now. It will be hard for the Belgians to co-operate with tho Government in new reforms for this reason. Four years of deliberately obstructive non-co-operative policy, which was almost nation-wide, could not be swept away when the British liberated Belgium. "You ask me what Belgian women are planning for the future." Madame la Baronne de Pol Boel, president of the International Council of Women, said to me. "We cannot talk of plans yet. We cannot think of them. It is impossible to change from obstruction to construction in a day." It is difficult to remember this when you look round a Brussels cafe and see Belgian families—each with their adopted soldier or air force _ mansmiling, laughing and talking m composite Anglo-French over a glass of cold watery beer, or a concoction of ground acorns and hot water. Mental Torture

It is difficult to remember, too, that there are few families ;n Belgium which have not a husband, brother or father in German hands. They all know the appalling menta tortures of what they call "the silence —the terrible silence which has closed down on most Belgian prisoners. In the last few days before the British entered Brussels the Germans forgot their "correct" behaviour A man whose word cannot be doubted told me that in those last days the Germans mutilated young student r £s |S ' ; " ants who were in their They gouged out their eyes, cut off their ears and slit their mouths up to> their ears. The Comtesse Helen Goblet d AlvieHa, president of the Belgian Y.W.C.A., told me that release of appalling stories of the prison fortress at Breendonck, which shocked the world a few, weeks ago, had cheeked Belgium even in the first joy of her liberation. . , Until then, she said, many people tried to hope "the silence'' might be merciful She told me about one o her friends who, for one minute, had seen her son's face at the barred wmdow of a cattle truck as he was being taken from Breendonck to Grßrni£tny« Friendship with Britain

"These stories have nearly killed her," the Comtesse said. All she can say now when we remind her that she had thought he looked well is to repeat, over and over, 'But I did not see his hands. I did not seo his hands. This is the background behind Belgium's exuberant joy at her qiKck liberation-joy not only because she is free again, but because liberation was, for Brussels at least, mercifully quick. The Belgian people are trying to express their gratitude in many ways. Their hospitality is embarrassing because we know that they have not enough food for themselves. It is still almost impossible to go for a Q sight-seeing walk in Brussels without Belgians coming up to ask if they can act a.s guides. As you talk you realise your amateur guides are seeing Brussels again aftei two or throe years spent in a prison camp in France or Belgium. Their eagerness to talk is understandable. Their friendship with Britain is of long standing; finding expression sometimes in the wish that Belgium could become part of the British Commonwealth on the same basis as Now Zealand and other Dominions. For four years their only contact with Britain'and the Allies was through the radio. "Kven now," Madame de Pol Boel said, "we find.it difficult to remember not to switch off the radio if someone comes to the door." They had no books except those sponsored by the Germans, who _ flooded Brussels and other Belgian cities with their own German literature.