REIGN OF TERROR

Taranaki Daily News, 31 March 1934, Page 16 (Supplement)

REIGN OF TERROR

SOCIALISTS PERSECUTED. ' BRUTALITY IN AUSTRIA. London, March 12 The special correspondent of the Daily Herald in Austria, in a telephone message from Zurich, reveals that the reign of terror against the Austrian Socialists continues. “A woman 65 years of age, he says, “was beaten into unconsciousness because she sheltered 12 badly wounded men who were fleeing to the mountains from the Fascists. Members of the Heimwehr took the woman into a darkened room and beat her until she fell to the ground. She had to -be removed to a hospital. “A Jewess, aged 22, suspected of having Socialist sympathies, was arrested and cruelly mutilated in prison, her ears and nostrils being tom. “Members of the Heimwehr are raiding municipal houses in Vienna, threatening the inmates with bayonets _ and slashing and breaking up furniture until the children are terrified. When women inquire at the prisons for their men-folk they are frequently told that they have been hanged. Non-fighting Socialists are beaten black and blue with rubber truncheons, sometimes m the presence of their families, if the police suspect that they have hidden arms.”