GERMAN RULE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 August 1940, Page 7

GERMAN RULE

CONDITIONS IN HOLLAND LIQUIDATION OF GESTAPO BLACK LIST. NAZIS DUCKED IN CANAL AT NIGHT. I am one of the few Dutchmen who have escaped from Nazi-occupied Hol- 1 land, stated J. Van Jongh in the "New York Times.” writing from London on June 6. I saw the Germans march in triumph through the streets of Amsterdam. standing among my silent, sullen compatriots. I saw the Gestapo arrive, riding in luxury motor-cars in the wake of the conquering army. My name was on the Gestapo lists found on captured German officers. Like hundreds of my countrymen. J was marked down for "liquidation." Sc when I saw the Germans goosestepping through the streets I ?nade one quick decision: I would not gc near my home or my office. For days I hid where I could, making the arrangements that have re suited in bringing me to safety in London. Many of my friends had been "liquidated" before I left Amsterdam Some were captured by the “fifth columnists" and handed over when the Germans marched in. Nearly all have faced the firing squads. STAUNCH NEUTRALS GO. Chief among the enemies of Germany were those Dutch traders who refused to swerve from the national principle of neutrality. All were on the Gestapo black list. Two Dutch representatives of a British engineering firm have vanished. Unlike myself, they maintained their normal daily routine. A business friend, a staunch friend of England, had done Britain good service. He had warned the Britisl' authorities in Holland about a number of cases where Dutch "fifth column" exporters were falsifying documents and generally misrepresenting German goods with the object of obtaining for them a certificate showing them to be of Dutch origin; in this way the exporters hoped to beat the British embargo on German exports. This man was one of the first to be "attended to” by the Gestapo. He was picked up early one morning. Next day his wife was offered his "remains” for 100 guilders. Officially he was an air-raid casualty. Another friend of mine was the leader of the stevedores’ union. When the pro-Nazis were re-exporting goods to Germany in defiance of the neutrality rules, my friend instructed the men of his union not to handle the stuff. They eamccut on strike to show their determination not to help the Nazis. This leader was marked down as an enemy of Germany. He. too. has disappeared.

WIFE PLEADS FOR HUSBAND. I shall never forget the drama I saw in a bomb-scarred, residential district in South Amsterdam. The Gestapo had called to arrest a journalist, some of whose blood was Jewish. On her knees on the pavement was his fair-haired wife, tears streaming down her cheeks, begging the Nazis to let her husband go. Roughly, they pushed her aside. They took her husband away. No woman’s tears can soften the heart of a Nazi. Daily the number of suicides mounted up in scores. Some of these were refugees who had escaped from concentration camps in Germany. Some were Germans who had been anti-Nazis of long standing. All knew what their fate would be should they fall into the hands of the Nazis. They chose death rather than the torture of the concentration camp. Everywhere the Dutch people are being pressed into the service of their captors. Any show of unwillingness or active demonstration of nationalist feelings means the concentration camp. What stores were left intact in the Rotterdam and Amsterdam treasure houses have been rifled by the Germans. A SLAVE STATE. The Dutchman, jostled off (and I have been even ordered off) the narrow pavements by a swaggering Nazi lout, bears the incident with dignity and apparent fortitude. But at night the blackout provides opportunity for the squaring of accounts. It is surprising how many of the conquerors receive a wetting as the result of a ducking in one of the canals. Carousing Nazis staggering from the cafes, under a load of liquor, were given a stealthy shove into the water. I myself accounted for two by such well-timed pushes during the short time I was under Nazi domination. Holland is fast becoming a slave State, sold to the Nazis by the Judases of the “Fifth Column.” And here is something my experience in Holland taught me: you never know who is .“ "Fifth Columnist:” these traitors work in secret. One man I knew in Amsterdam was an influential and titled businessman. I always regarded hinas a patriotic Dutchman until the Nazis were bombarding Rotterdam. Then he said to me: "I cannot help ihinkin; Holland would be better oil' under Nazi protection." A few hours later he was killed by a Nazi bomb.