NAZI SPOLIATION OF FRANCE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 179, 1 August 1940, Page 6

NAZI SPOLIATION OF FRANCE

WINTER FACED WITH DREAD HARVEST WILL YIELD ONLY HALF OF REQUIREMENTS (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) Received July 31, 8 p.m. LONDON, July 31. The Vichy correspondent of the British United Press says that France faces the winter with dread in her heart. Crops are ripening and are unattended and the majority of farmers have not yet returned from the army. The Germans have ruined or harvested most of the crops in northern France. It is estimated that the harvest will yield only half of France’s requirements.

Communications are chaotic. A hundred million letters and packages are awaiting delivery and telegrams take five days to cover 100 miles. The newspapers are publishing columns of small advertisements from families seeking news of lost wives, fathers, and children. The Germanisation of Alsace-Lor-raine continues. Strasbourg is a ghost city. Only a few of the 200,000 inhabitants have been allowed to return, but the Germans are rebuilding bridges. Boards nailed over the broken windows of Jewish shops and synagogues hide gutted interiors. All the towns in Alsace-Lorraine are bordering on economic exhaustion. The French inhabitants are ragged and mothers are surrounded by halfnaked children. French prisoners are being released from Germany in order to assist in the restoration of agriculture and industry.