SUFFERING IN GREECE

Waikato Times, Volume 194, Issue 22246, 15 January 1944, Page 3

SUFFERING IN GREECE

WOMEN DEMAND NEW WORLD The following extracts are taken from a message which was recently smuggled out of occupied Greece from the National Organisation of Greek women: “It is now almost two years since the day when our country fell under the most tyrannfcal yoke ever known throughout the ages. Can all free people, who have not lived under Axis occupation, picture our martyr- | dom, and believe that the barbarians 1 of old have come to life again, and, \ with unquenchable thirst for destruction, are killing, looting, wreck- . ing and laying waste our country? “Many of us t now homeless, starving and unprotected, with babies in i our arms and bundles on our shoul- ! ders, drag our weary footsteps up j the seemingly endless road of our j | Calvary. Our knees give way. Tears may fall in torrents from our eyes, i Our souls may be tormented. We do . not submit! “Every day our kinsmen fall fight- ! ing in the towns and mountains. Our : hearts ache, and we mourn for them, but we fully realise how indispens- ' able :s their sacrifice for the great thing called liberty. Many of us have watered the tree of liberty with our life blood, and many of us are rotting in gaol. Appeal to Free Women “Sisters! Free women of all the world! In this great and terrible hour of our martyrdom and bondage we feel the need to address ourselves to you, who have the good fortune to breathe the pure air of freedom. We wish by this communion with you to draw from you more strength with which to face our ordeal patiently. “We want you to realise all the horror of what we are suffering as j a result of this terrible war, and to fire your souls so that you may in- I tensify your war effort still more. We want you to give us a great promise. “Promise that tomorrow, when the hour of victory shall sound, all of us united shall demand—nay, shall insist—upon the creation of a new world free from wars and ‘destruction; a world based upon the freedom of the individual and on social and universal justice. This promise will

serve to lighten the' burden of our bondage. .“We can give you this promise: Whatever trials we may endure, however much we may suffer, we will never deliver our souls to the barbarians, and if necessary we will make supreme sacrifice of our lives like the ‘Souliot’ women who danced over the cliffs at Zolcngo, even prouder than they, because we shall be dying for the freedom of mankind.”