OCR Text |
Show TERRIBLE ACT OF GERMAN SOLDIERS Rotterdam. Aug. 31 Sun Ivors of the sacking of Louvain who came io the office of the International News Service here today all tell the same story of the calculated terrorism of the German troops directed against the entire population, evidently as a part of their military tactics. The threats they made were not often carried out, however, except in extreme cases. When the Inhabitants Inhabit-ants were known to have firearms In their houses the German soldiers in-rarlably in-rarlably applied their noses to the muzzle of the gun or revolver to detect de-tect by the smell whether the firearm fire-arm had been recently used. If the test showed that such was the case, it was assumed that the weapon had heen used against the invaders and the owner was immediately taken out to the public square, where bunches of them were publicly shot. The punishment was made as public pub-lic as pc6slble as a warning. These summary executions caused the wild est panic among the population, who believed that a general massacre was progressing. Men not found with weapons were put through a system of mental torture, tor-ture, which none can ever forget. They were separated from their fam llles and compelled to walk through the streets with their hands In the air. They were locked up all night ! in railroad stations or barracks without with-out food or water and told that they would be shot in the morning. Priest-were Priest-were allowed to go to them to take their confessions during the nigh' and in the morning, still without food, they were again herded througn the streets with their hands up at the point of a bayonet. One survivor told the correspondent of the International News Service that when they were led to the public square they were told they were about to be executed, but could take their choice as to whether they were to bo blindfolded and shot facing the firing squad or if they preferred they might sit over a trench with their back to the firing squad. After hundreds of the Inhabitant had suffered all the agony of death thev were told that the German com mander had spared their lives and that the Germans never inflicted death upon innocent non-combatants, f "i but for every German shot In the streets thereafter, at least ten cili fl zens would be executed. They had better see to it therefor, that their a fellow citizens obeyed the German orders. Women were in many cases herded herd-ed into cars and packed off to some other place, apparently for no other purpose than to break up their families fam-ilies and to spread universal terror Individual soldiers behaved with gross brutality to the women in many cases. |