Foreign News: The New Disorder

For hungry Athenians the historic heights of the Acropolis last week offered a mystic portent of hope. Atop the serene ruins fluttered three flags: the native blue-&-white of the tough, proud erstwhile kingdom, flanked on either side by the arrogant swastika and its impudent Italian companion piece.

“Christ hung between two thieves,” said the Greeks.

But if Christ should live again, why not Greece herself? Why not, indeed, all of liberty-loving Europe?

Thus last week did courage and hunger and smoldering resentment make significant news on the Continent. Down the narrow coast of stolid Norway, across the North Sea to the surly Low Countries and France, eastward through new-but-not-orderly Central Europe, and deep into the vitals of the sultry Balkans, something important was stirring. It was a wave of sabotage and active resistance to the conqueror on a scale heretofore unknown in World War II.

Norway. Blaming British broadcasts for “increasing instances of impudence and provocative behavior to uniformed and civilian Germans,” Nazi Police Chief Lieut. General Wilhelm Redeiss confessed that “one cannot overlook the fact that they are gaining supporters for their anti-German plans.”

> At Bergen, death before a firing squad came to three young Norwegians, first in Norway’s modern history to suffer capital punishment. The charge: a secret visit to England; possession of a British radio transmitter.

> Stockholm reported acute Norwegian food shortages. Producers, the dispatch said, refused to produce, preferring to starve rather than feed the invaders.

Belgium. Disregarding the “humane motives” which prompted a Belgian family to harbor a grounded R.A.F. pilot in their home, a German military court gave the tip-off on growing Nazi apprehension by ordering one of the stiffest sentences since the occupation: death to the man, 70; his wife, 68; their daughter, 34.

> Jumpy German nerves made it worth four months’ imprisonment for the classically quarrelsome Walloons and Flemish to slander one another with “Dirty Boche!”

France. In Paris, war-weary poilus returning from Syria were greeted at the Gare St. Lazare by stones and boos from an unruly mob which shouted, “Down with Vichy!”, “Down with the occupying authorities!”, “Long live Russia!” Of six people killed and 19 wounded, when police fired on the crowd, the Nazi-controlled Paris press growled, “Jews and Communists!” Same day, two miles away in the traditionally Red St. Denis district, police quelled another roaring riot. Following day, Nazi authorities revealed a wave of arson was sweeping both zones in France, issued a blunt warning to Communist saboteurs and propagandists that they were “liable to the death penalty.” Latest arson victims: three large factories producing German war supplies. Train wrecks were multiplying so rapidly that Paris police posted 1,000,000 francs for information which would trap the responsible culprits.

> In Lorraine, as reprisal for the flight of able-bodied youths to Unoccupied France, Nazis announced the fugitives’ families would be split up, deported to Germany.

> An eyewitness entering Switzerland reported ten residents of St. Etienne threw themselves on the railroad tracks to prevent a trainload of requisitioned French goods from departing for Germany.

> Following Marshal Pétain’s public confession from Vichy that all was not serene in his bailiwick, the Government decreed jail sentences of from two weeks to a year for De Gaullist talk.

Hungary. For 15,000 aliens, mostly Polish and Russian Jews, terror was again on the march. Budapest reports lacked detail, but indicated that riots, sabotage and general unrest were swelling the ranks of forced-labor camps.

Yugoslavia. Bomb-loving Serbs and Croats loosed so much explosive at Germans, Italians and at each other that officials announced: “Whenever those responsible for a plot are not apprehended, hostages will be executed instead.”

> At least 189 nationalists were executed at Zagreb, turbulent capital of Italy’s new puppet State, Croatia.

> In Belgrade, Germans shot 122 saboteurs, twelve others for illegal possession of weapons.

> At Sarajevo, Serbia, 30 Chetniks (members of Serbia’s suicidally fanatic guerrilla fraternity) were hanged. Luckier comrades continued wreaking havoc on railroads, bridges, telegraph communications. Near the town of Gola, one Chetnik band attacked a German convoy, slew several Nazis, prompted the High Command to obliterate Gola in reprisal.

Rumania. Premier General Ion Antonescu contracted a sudden “illness,” failed to return to his command on the Russian Front. Reported reason: sympathy with a secret note from Peasant Leader Juliu Maniu urging rapprochement with the democracies because Germany could not win the war. Maniu was reported prepared to flee when his three best friends were collared by the Gestapo.

Bulgaria. Made public were stories of three attempts to assassinate King Boris III since the German invasion of Russia.

> In Sofia four men whom a military court termed “leftist students and laborers working for Britain” were hanged. This week 35 more face death.

At week’s end, occupied Europe was still tragic, unhappy, hungry. But thanks, doubtless, to Russia’s inspiring resistance and to the prairiefire V campaign, it was also fighting, daringly mad. Germany, unhappy about her war on two fronts, had found a third one right under her heels.