1941-02-19 — Page 9

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.

อ

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 sce 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 saine room, very weak and suf- fering from superficial cuts across the body.

One by one our liberties arc destroyed. Recently the Ministry

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 fect, who collapse before their turn is reached. People of Education prescribed that firs 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.

A concierge to

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 ceiling is on, thievery. the Bour of the drawing-room; butį

Another officer to a friend: fine and 1 your geraniums

From various sources we know water them every day

I remain that the

Germans attempted an your di voted concierge, who takes invasion of England at the begin- good care of everything.

ning of August. Their failure was losses were tre- her absolute.

210

to bride-to-be A young best friend: I broke off

because Paul engagement

and especially his family, are much too nice to the Germans, I could not possibly start married life on such

I will a footing.

not marry а pessimist, a born loser, a fellow who has no fight in him.

more

Their

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 are determined culture and to inculcate it in our children.

We shall surely suffer very much We ex- materially and morally. pect to see all France subjugated to Germany and to see ourselves reduced to silence, that terrible silence of the oppressed nations, that silence of which Stefan Zweig was speaking last winter on the radio: the voice that you will hear, the voices you are already hea ing, as coming from France are not the voice of France. That is the A lady with a flair for litera reason why I am writing to you

Parisians now ture to a friend:

this last time in order to tell you, only travel via

the subway, on and in order that you may tell the bicycles, or on foot. After suffer-American people, that the French ing my share of the daily public have remained French and that Calvary by awaiting my turn in only an abominable treason has led the long queues in front of the them to ruin and dishonour. food stores. I take a walk in the Bois. There dream of the 1 days that are passed. "Gone with the Wind."

mymendous. An epidemic of suicides Austrian took place among them. troops fought German regiments. Many German soldiers speak with a great deal of discouragement or even cry. Some of them have been in the army for a number of years and are tired of it.

A Jew from the Lorraine district to one of his faith In the United States: With the utmost brutality, the Ger- mans introduced their laws, and especially the Nuremberg Jaws, in Alsace and then on Lor- raine. They think that these pro- be returned to vinces will never France and systematically destroy all that is French either from the intellectual, religious, or peasant standpoint.

My father, who, due to his age, is seriously affected by the disas- We have been thrown out of our ter of this occupation, has managed home in one hour. We were per- to rent a carriage. I do not know mitted to take with us only some from whence this antique vehicle linen ard 5,000 fraties, but as we was resurrected, but I accept its did not have any money in the definition by Tristan Bernard: "An house we left without funds of any instrument of kind.

iron

and wood,

We were wedged like cat-destined to push horses," the into A railroad carriage and pushed

[0 moccupied France. After untokl suffering, we have now been given quarters by a charitable municipality.

Nazi Nerves

Britain The Hope

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

I can tell you that the French

A £ocial worker to another: Government of to-day does nut

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 Germana iled 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 cannot stand. It is strange dictatorship tied to that of Hitler. to note how much jess 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 inert them every day. use all our colonial resources, must know that, would have been more honourable However, you 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

imagine, they are hated. 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 Here, what can we do? Two 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 | irany!) by command of the Ger- colleague: At first, we found mans. The farmers and the

can

Britain

Fortunately, Great asema to understand what hap- pened and does not make the French nation responsible for the ects of its Government. In Great Britain res'des our hope of sal- vation, In Great Britain and also In the United States that may mightily help her.

the inhabitanta surprised by agricultural labourers of the old- the politeness and reticence 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 do? German collaboration. The sys- tematic pillage, which: the Ger-

mans undertook when they ins

troduced a monetary systein of

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