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Show Axis Leaders Set Record of Brutality For sheer brutally, the Axis leaders lead-ers have proven themselves comparable com-parable to the barbarians of ancient history. In World War 1 there was much talk of atrocities. But many of the atrocity stories were made up of whole cloth for purposes of propaganda. Real atrocities were scattered and relatively rare, and they were not done as a matter of governmental policy. In World War n, to the contrary, mudred and rape and devastation are pursued by the matter of routine and that fact Oermans and Japanese almost as a has been completely substantiated by reputable eyewitnesses. It makes little difference to the Gestapo whether a man Is Innocent or guilty, as the mass executions of hostages abundantly testifies. The Axis radio, at times, actuallly boasts of the wanton slaughter of non-combatants. President Roosevelt, during the course of a recent warning to Axis officials that retribution would come when the war ends. said. "The nocent hostages In reprisal for lso-practlce lso-practlce of executing scores or in-lated in-lated attacks on Oermans in countries coun-tries temporarily under the Nazi heel revolts a world already inured to suffering and brutality. . . . Civilized Civ-ilized people long ago adopted the basic principle that no man shouli be punished for the deed of another.' anoth-er.' That principle has been entirely entire-ly abandoned by the Axis. The Axis Is deliberately exterminating extermin-ating entire populations. Hitler himself him-self has said that the Poles must he liquidated and, according to reports re-ports which have seeped out of Warsaw, the death rate has assumed assum-ed Incredible proportions, especially In the Jewish areas. Starvation is rampant In Greece, and some authorities au-thorities believe that within two years, under present conditions, the Greek people will virtually disappear- Men who have escaped from Jap concentration camps in Hongkong Hong-kong and elsewhere, say that the Japanese are pursuing an almost identical policy. Captured soldiers and civilians alike are given almost no food. They are denied all medical med-ical supplies and attention. Sanitary Sani-tary conditions are literally horrible. hor-rible. And these people, as a reiislt are dying like flies. One of the latest Axis innovations innova-tions has been to raze entire villages, vil-lages, shoot every male resident, and send the women and children to forced labor within Germany For every attack made on Axis officials, of-ficials, major or minor, dozens of innocents are executed. When a really important Axs official is killed, such as "Hangman" Hey-drlck Hey-drlck of the Gestapo, the toll of slaughter runs far into the hundreds. hun-dreds. When the war ends, as the President Pres-ident has said, the men responsible for this will be brought to Justice And a long list of Quislings with-worklng with-worklng hand in glove with the In the occupied nations who are Axis will also have to face Judges appointed by the people in whose ruin and torture they have collaborated. collab-orated. In the meantime, Hitler's barbarous tactics have not broken To the contrary, the flame of re-the re-the spirit of the conquered nations, volt burns ever higher. Sabotage goes on. Oermans are found dead In the towns and countryside of France, Greece, Holland, the Netherlands, Neth-erlands, the Ballkans, etc And In all of the occupied nations, amusingly amus-ingly well developed "underground" exist The men who belong to these undergrounds un-dergrounds are unknown. The names of many of them will never be known. Theirs is the most risky awl desperate of undertakings. Every second of the day they must face the .spe ter of death by torture. ' This Is the highest kind of human courage. Life recently ran an article cn the French underground which is especially effective. The leaders quietly and continually organize sabotage of the Nazi war effort In French factories. They print little newspapers which are widely circulated cir-culated and which bring to the enslaved en-slaved French people news of the free world outside their borders. As '-art of this work, the French Underground Un-derground has compiled an interesting inter-esting "blacklist" of men and women wo-men who are marked for assassination. assassina-tion. All of the names on that l'st belong to Frenchmen who have sold out to Germany. And some of the names are world famous: Peti:n; Weygand; Laval; Derain. the painter; paint-er; Mistinguett, the celebrated music mus-ic hall star;Carpentier, the pugilist. Maurice Chevalier, the movie actor; etc., etc. The Free French have pledged that not one of the men and women on that list will escajn' .swift justice at the earliest pa-slbl' t:me. To quote the President's warninj once aga:n, "The Nazis miijht have learned from the last war the impossibility im-possibility of breaking men's spirit by terrorism . . Friyhtfulne.ss can never bring peace to Euro;1. It only sows the seeds of hatred which w'll one day bring fearful retribution." retribu-tion." The patriots in the conquered, conquer-ed, tortured nations are waiting with grim anticipation for that day. |