1941-02-19 — Page 25

THE CHINA MAIL, FEBRUARY 19, 1941.

LETTERS FROM · FRANCE :

72, ON

OF WIFE MURDER

SIDELIGHTS ON CHARGE

LIFE UNDER THE GERMANS

AMERICAN PAPERS are publishing letters from France to French men and women in the Unit- ed States which give interesting sidelights on life in the occupied region. The following are published

by the "New York Times":-

Benjamin Briers, aged 72, of Swinborne Avenue, Broadstairs, was remanded at Margate on charge of murdering his wife, Harriet Briers.

a

When the charge was read out, Briers jumped up and said, "Mur- der did you say? I was wa ting for her to come and see me."

Mrs. Briers, who was 72, was found dead when police broke into her home on the night of November 7. She had severe head and throat wounds. Her husband was lying on the couch in the same room, very weak and suf- fering from superficial cuts across the body.

One by onc our liberties arc destroyed. Recently the Ministry of Education prescribed that first

A cook to her mistress: When you come back, I hope you won't scold me if I cannot give you the tasty dishes I used to-no milk, no butter, no rice, no coffee, no tea. We have to wait for hours to buy potatoes. I am sorry for the poor women with bad feet, who collapse before their turn is reached. People fight each other standing in line, they are so impa- place should be given to physical tient and so hungry. This is not a smart thing to We must do, as we are watched by the Germans. stand firm and have courage. The worst of it is that I am getting out of practice.

Another officer

education

and that intellectual education should be relegated to second place. In order to execute this prescription exactly, they will carefully purge the teaching per- sonnel. But WE shall defend ourselves. We are determined not to permit our children to become mere machines that do what they are ordered to do and think what they are ordered to think. We to preserve our to а friend: are determined

culture and to inculcate it in our children.

A concierge to a tenant: France, and the shopkeepers, who The people who lived above you at first thought they were selling left the water running when they goods, came to realise that it was rushed away, so the reifing is on, thievery. the floor of the drawing-room; but

ling your geraniums

anti I

From various sources we know water them every day. I remain that the Germans attempted an your devoted concierge, who takes invasion of England at the begin-

We shall surely suffer very much good care of everything.

We ex- ning of August. Their failure was materially and morally.

all France subjugated A

young

bride-to-be to her absolute. Their losses were tre-pect to see best friend: I broke off my endouts. An epidemic of suicides to Germany and to see ourselves silence, that terrible engagement because Paul, and took place among them. Austrian reduced to

silence of the oppressed nations, especially his family, are much too troops fought German regiments. nice to the Germans. I could not Many German soldiers speak with that silence of wh ch Stefan Zweig was speaking last winter on the possibly start married life on such a great deal of discouragement or a footing. I will not marry a even cry. Some of them have radio: the voice that you will hear, pessimist, a born laser, a fellow been in the army for a number of the voices you are already hear- who has no fight in him.

years and are tired of it.

ing, as coming from France are not the voice of France. That is the reason why 1-am writing to you this last time in order to tell you, land in order that you may tell the American people, that the French have remained French and that only an abominable treason has led them to ruin and dishonour.

ong

A Jew from the Lorraine district to

of hio faith in the United States: With the utmost brutality, the Ger- mans introduced their laws, and more especially the Nuremberg laws, in Alsuce and then on Lor- raine. They think that these pro- vinces will never be returned to France and systematically destroy all that is French either from the| intellectual, religious, or peasant standpoint.

We have been thrown out of our' home in one hour. We were per- mitted to take with us only some linen and 5,000 francs, but as we

did not have any money in the house we left without funds of any kind. We were wedged like cat- tle into 1 railroad carriage and pushed [ unoccupied France. After untold suffering, we have now been Kiven quarters by a charitable municipality.

Nazi Nerves

A lady with a flair for litera- ture to a friend: Parisians now only travel via the subway, on bicycles, or on foot. After suffer- ing my share of the dally public Calvary by awaiting my turn in the long queues In front of the food stores. I take a walk in the Bois. There 1 dream of the days that are passed. "Gone with the Wind,"

My father, who, due to his ag", is seriously affected by the disas- ter of this occupation, hus managed to rent a carriage. I do not know from whence this antique vehicle was resurrected, but I accept its definition by Tristan Bernard: "An instrument of iron and wood, destined to push horses."

Britain The Hope

The "New York Herald-Tribune" publishes the following outspoken letter from * Frenchman sume- where in France."

I can tell you that the French

A social worker to another: Government of to-day does not The trucks which nightly move represent France. With the ex- the furniture from the most beauti- | ception of a small part of the bour- ful apartments in Paris bring back' geoisie that looks only to its German families who settled here most immediate interests, the en masse, We understand that French people consider that this these Germans fed from the shameful armistice is only the bombardments the Royal Air Force result of the treason of a political inflicts on Germany and which party which was dreaming of а they canust stand. It is strange dictatorship tied to that of Hitler, to note how much less nervous All the French people believe that resistance the Germans have than an unconditional surrender, which the French, I can tell because I would have allowed our Allies to have to meet then every day.

: use

all our colonial resources, However, you must know that, would have been more honourable apart from the families that come than this abandonment of every- here temporarily because of the thing to Germany and this volte raids, there are a great number, face against Great Britain, to whom Germany installs in. the whom, moreover, We had sworn North of France for the purpose fidelity. of Nazifying the country. They handle the whole thing as a colon- isation project and, as you can imagine, they are hated.

Fortunately, Great Britain seems to understand what hap- pened and does not make the French nation responsible for the ects of its Government. In Great Britain res'de; our hope of sål- vation, In Great Britain and also In the United States that may mightily help hor. Here, what can

we do? Two

When we took over Morocco and Indo-China the inhabitants found it a blessing, whereas the Germans take all we have, The population is aware of this and knows that if perchance they are not pillaged they are ruined nevertheless, due million men have been surrender- to the monetary system the Ger-ed to the Germans. The others mans have installed.

are called to the colours (what An officer to an American | irony!) by command of the Ger colleague: At first, we found mans. The farmers and the the inhabitants surprised by agricultural labourers of the old- the politeness and · reficence of est levies have been liberated, but the Germans in occupied territory. the Germans do not allow them to We did not realise that this was a go home and many of them do not command performance. Many of want to work just to feed Ger- us thought business would begin many. No action is possible. What again and believed in Franco- could disarmed”men dp?. German collaboration, The sys- tematic ́pillage, which... the Ger-

mans undertook when they in-

Slow Death

troduced a monetary system of

And that means death for one mark having the value of France, a slow death order." twenty francs, opened everybody's ed by Germany, with the eyes. The marks are distributed complicity

. of our Govern-

at the rate of two a day to eachment. They assail even the soldier, They are valid, only in spirit, the civilisation of France.

9: aẵng }

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