“FOOD NOT FIT TO EAT”

Southland Times, Issue 24368, 24 February 1941, Page 5

“FOOD NOT FIT TO EAT”

French Prisoners 111-Treated (British Official Wireless) (Received February 23, 9.30 p.m.) RUGBY, February 22. A high French officer who was captured in Norway but managed to escape from Germany across the Balkans to join the Free French Forces in the Middle East has, in a Press interview, given revealing details of the treatment of French war prisoners. He said they were underfed and the food was not fit to eat. A French peasant would not feed his pigs with it. “It is just enough to keep one alive, but not to keep one in health,” he said. “French and Polish prisoners were made to work like horses. They worked 14 hours a day and during the lunch hour. Their clothes had been confiscated and given to German workers. He had seen some of them made to work in tlie depths of winter, sockless, hatless and wearing only a cotton shirt and shorts. Every effort was being made to break down the morale of the prisoners by anti-British propaganda. “Propaganda is such,” said the officer, “that I myself really believed that the French fleet had already been handed over to Germany when I managed to escape.”