NAZI BRUTALITY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24736, 13 October 1941, Page 6

NAZI BRUTALITY

ATROCITIES IN CRETE INCONCEIVABLE HORRORS GREEK MINISTER'S REPORT RUGBY, Oct. 10. Mr Churchill has received from M. Tsouderos, the" Greek Prime Minister, an account of German atrocities in Crete forwarded from Cairo by the Greek War Minister. Mr ChurchilJ, in reply, expressed his horror at the atrocities perpetrated by the Germans. The message from Cairo says after the capture of Crete the German army burned to the ground the villages of Skine, Brasse, and Kandanos. Their sites are marked by posters bearing the inscription: "Here once stood Skine. Brasse, and Kandanos." The Germans looted every single house and store in the towns and villages, leaving them empty of every single object. They proceeded to the innumerable murders of people flying for safety in ,the open country, of children and old people asleep in their homes, and collective executions after summary parodies of a trial. The condemned people were forced to dig their common graves before execution. Wounded Bnried Alive At Kystona three people who had been wounded during the evacuation were buried while still alive. Their families were forced to offer dinner to the murderers of their own husbands, fathers, and brothers, and suffer the mocking jests of the feasting Germans.

The curate of Roumaton, as well as the abbot and monks of the monastery of Aghia Gonda, were put to death. The altar of the church of Manoliowas desecrated by the Germans. The surviving inhabitants, some 800 women and children, from Lower Cydonia, were seen being marched through the Rethymno district, and a police sergeant at Ipiatzakis was tortured to death, his. limbs being wrenched off one by one, with the object of forcing him to denounce the holders of German rifles. At Erivalia Den Silva, in the Rethymno district, people were executed one by one in the presence of others also condemned to death, and of their relatives, after having .been forced to dig their own graves. At Heraklion the prefect was executed, and Colonel Tsatsaronakis met the same fate because he tried to help the persecuted to escape. In the same place five more Greeks were executed because they failed to declare that they knew German. Guerrilla Bands Active According to available information the number of executions m Canea totalled 506, in the Rethymno district 130, and in Heraklion 50. The male population of the island, especially in Western Crete, has taken to the mountains in arms. , The message is signed "S. Dimtrakakis, Minister of War." The Greek Minister of Information stated in London to-day that the resistance of the Cretans to the Germans had been very considerable, particularly in the mountains, where guerrilla bands were still active. They included British and dominion troops who had escaped to the mountains at the time of the evacuation of Crete. The Minister added that his Gove™ 1 * 16 *I*■ 1 * ■> was completely satisfied with' thei authen-ticityof-1' the-^se'eounts,: of atrocities; V %-. \/' v'.?-.. : ;%.?■•;■■