High School uoitUM

VOL. in, No. 38 SEPTEMBER 18, 1943 NEWS FROM BELGIUM AND THE BELGIAN CONGO

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"The Very Best of the Lot"

Once upon a time in the Middle Ages, a tered little to them. They were the descen• Belgian peasant set out from his village for dants, or at least the heirs, of some of the the fair at nearby Ciney. There he stole a oldest Europeans — sturdy, swarthy cavern cow, which he took to another town. The men, who had lived for ages in the rocky owner of the animal followed him and was hills of prehistoric Belgium, fighting feroci• fortunate enough to meet his feudal lord, ous beasts and, in the long, dark hours of to whom he complained about the robbery. winter and night, drawing on the walls of This mighty and righteous man told the their grottos sober pictures of the terrifying thief that if he returned the cow, he would animals they had to combat. be forgiven. The peasant obeyed, but no When the feudal period, with its endless sooner had he set foot on the territory of succession of savage revenge, banditry, mass Ciney than he was arrested and hanged. executions, razing of towns and ruthless de• The feudal lord, to whom the peasant had portations, was over, the Walloons found paid allegiance, took this unfair procedure an outlet for their fighting spirit in the most as a personal offense and immediately at• dangerous of industries — mining and pro• tacked Ciney in force. At once the people fessional soldiery. A great number of them of Huy, the Duke of Brabant, the counts of put themselves at the disposal of the con- Flanders, Namur and Luxemburg joined the dottieri who, for two centuries, played such fight. The War of the Cow of Ciney was an important role in European politics. waged for three years, during which 20,000 They were mercenary soldiers and excellent people were killed, and the Ardennes coun• ones at that. Highest praise was bestowed try was completely devastated. The cow, de• on them by the German poet Schiller in his scribed by the poet as "the one end moo, tragedy Wallenstein. Reviewing the interna• the other milk," lived happily ever after. tional character of the troops at the camp Such were the Walloons of old — fighters of that great adventurer Wallenstein, he who so believed in fighting that apparently says of the Walloons: the reason or excuse for the conflict mat• "They are the very best of the lot." NEWS FEOM BELGIUM SEPTEMBEE 18, 1943

But not only did they fight loyally and sion plays were written in this land. In the bravely for foreign princes; having served highly-refined XVIIIth century, the height in the French Army during the Revolution of graceful writing and elegant philosophiz• and the Napoleonic Empire, they also made ing was reached by the Prince de Eigne, a a decisive contribution to the liberation and native of the Walloon city of Tournay. the independence of their own country Later, the Walloons gave Gretry and Cesar in 1830. Franck to the world, and, being a versatile It would be tempting, if all too easy, to people, they also contributed through Adol- establish a deterministic parallel between phe Sax of Dinant, the saxophone to the the aspects of the Walloon countryside and musical world. the character and history of its inhabitants. They became excellent gunsmiths; they Up to recent times, most of the southern made copper hammering a fine art; they part of Belgium was covered with a dense went down into the coal beds of their forest which even Caesar s legions found hills and exploited the most dangerous and hard to penetrate, and in which they met treacherous mines of Europe with a stub• many minor defeats. The Romans settled, born courage. Part of the forest gave way for the most part, on the edges of the im• to industry. Charleroi became a miniature, mense woods, and for centuries the Coal although a drabber, Pittsburgh. Hundreds Forest was only meagerly inhabited and lit• of villages were transformed into ugly min• tle known. ing towns, their blue slate roofs continu• During the prehistoric cataclysm, half a ally buried under the heavy coal dust. dozen rivers and streams had carved their But, in the midst of the relentless progress way through the Ardennes forest and the of heavy industry, most of the Ardennes for• rest of the Walloon country. Breaking the est remained intact. It became the pleasure monotony of the endless forest, the rocky resort of Belgium and Holland, the trout- surface had given way, in many places, to fisher's paradise, the timber reserve of the narrotv valleys bordered by steep cliffs, but nation. always hemmed in by the woods. Every• In World War I, the Walloon country suf• where water was the essential factor in the fered the brunt of the German attack in settlement of the land. It gave Walloonia 1914, Liege put up a proverbial resistance, its beauty and greatness. It flowed in state and hundreds of civilians in Dinant and through the channels of the mighty Meuse; elsewhere were murdered by the Germans. it rushed playfully along the winding banks Then the long-drawn-out battle rolled on to of the Lesse, the Ambleve and the Semois; destroy Flanders. But during the four years it cascaded and chattered in a thousand wa• of occupation, the Germans did not remain terfalls through the thickness of the forest; idle. Not only did they take their share (the it rumbled through impenetrable caverns lions share, needless to say) of the indus• and reverberated deep within the Grottos trial and mining output of the country, but of Han —vaster than the Kentucky caves; they inaugurated an extensive program of it lay, leaden and ominous, in great, silent, deforestation. They reduced the timber re• underground lakes, echoing only the pierc• serve of the Walloon country to such an ing screeches of the bats. extent, that the value of the wood they stole The water must have taught the people amounted to 200,000,000 gold francs. to sing. The oldest known French poem, the In his excellent and illuminating book canticle to St. Eulalia, was chanted some• Nazis in the Woodpile, Egon Glesinger has where in the Walloon country in the Xlth proved beyond a doubt that several years century: "Buona pulcella fu Eulalia." Here before the outbreak of the war, the Ger• the charming legend of Aucassin and Nico- mans had perfected a scheme for acquiring lette originated, and some of the first pas• that essential raw material, wood.

[298] NEWS FEOM BELGIUM SEPTEMBEE 18, 1943

When they invaded Belgium, they were bor for everybody between 18 and 60 in in possession of a well-prepared plan of ex• Belgium, a great number of younger peo• ploitation of the country's wood reserves. ple have taken to the woods. Although there They started their campaign by prohibiting is not much information about the propor• the importation of Norwegian and Finnish tion of these evasions, it is believed that timber. Even in East Flanders where tim• thousands of them are hiding in the deep ber was scarce, they requisitioned all trees Ardennes forests. Those boys are inspired of more than one yard in circumference by what happened in the Walloon cities; for the manufacture of wooden shoes, thus the stubborn resistance of patriots in Liege dooming part of that province to complete succeeded in driving the Nazi-appointed deforestation. mayor completely out of his mind, with the In the Walloon country, they were so result that he had to be interned. They kill• ruthless in their policy of plundering that, ed the Nazi-appointed mayors of Verviers, by 1941, they had endangered the mining Charleroi and many other places. industry by creating a shortage of wood for pit props. Cave-in became so numerous These young men know that there is no that the Germans were compelled to use reconciliation possible between the murder• steel girders in the mines. ers of Dinant and Vise, and the decent peo• In several places the civilian population ple of Belgium. The fact that the Ardennes was drafted to cut the wood, in order to woods have become the fortress and hiding provide pit props; elsewhere Czech and Pol• place of thousands of Belgians was clearly ish slave-laborers who were familiar with revealed by the Germans themselves. After forestry, were taken from the mines to work these patriotic outlaws had succeeded a in the woods. The Germans also used the number of times in raiding German proper• forests as a storage place for their ammuni• ty and retiring to the safety of their hide out, tion. the Germans announced that they would not search the woods with soldiers and Ges• Belgian patriots who knew about this and tapo any more, but would use machine guns had found out how much the Germans to force the Belgians out of their hiding needed wood, started a scorched-earth pol• places. In one instance, they used 60 ma• icy with remarkable results. They, them• chine-guns and peppered a section of the selves, set the woods on fire. According to woods during a whole night, without suc• German publications, the number of forest cess. A few days ago, the Nazis who have fires in Belgium rose from 160 in 1939 to always claimed that peace and order reign 404 in 1941. in the southern as well as in the northern When the Germans tried to enforce the part of Belgium, were compelled to an• regulations of the Agricultural Corporation nounce that in several places of the Ar• which they had organized, they met with dennes they have had to use artillery against stubborn resistance in a great number of civilians hiding in the forests. Walloon villages. The Corporation which wanted to redistribute cattle, which meant Whenever brute force is tried and proves essentially taking the livestock away from ineffective, it becomes ridiculous. There is farmers, had to organize military expedi• nothing very glorious about fighting un• tions against the obstinate peasants of the armed college students with heavy artillery. Ardennes region. Many a dramatic incident At the bottom of every humorous story there occurred, and in several cases there were is the same element of disproportion. But more armed men, controllers and Quisling who will teach humor to the Germans? officials checking up on the livestock of cer• One night in 1468, 600 men from Fran- tain villages than there were inhabitants. chimont tried to kidnap their duke and the Since the Germans introduced forced la• King of France at Liege. They were dis-

[299] NEWS FROM BELGIUM SEPTEMBEK 18, 1943 covered, hut they fought against 40.000 en• kill a few young men who have not found emies and died to the last man. The Ger• safety in the limestone caves or in the deep mans who have little humor but much his• and humid fastnesses of the forest, but how torical information may well remember that could they hope to destroy the spirit of a this story inspires every Belgian school people to whom their own great poet paid child. When they fire their cannons in the tribute in this line: rustling woods of the Ardennes, they will "Respect him for he is a Walloon." knock down some oaks and elms, some chestnuts and some pines. They may even —THE EDITOR.

''Somewhere in fhe Middle Easf

From "somewhere in the Middle East," Julian Grunberg, United Press war correspondent, sent back the following report on the Bel• gian Congo troops in Egypt.

An advance party of the Belgian Congo me• gian officers, unaccustomed to such conditions, chanized brigade arrived in the Middle East underwent a severe strain. They kept their heads after one of the most gnielling treks ever un• up and set a fine example of discipline and grit dertaken over uncharted deserts. to the native troops. Every one of the Seventeen The Negro soldiers, commanded by Belgian Cliffs of the Devil seemed worse than the pre• officers, have come from the heart of the jungle ceding one. 4,000 miles away to join the forces of the United Nations massed on the North African spring• Men Driven Frantic board. The exertion and the heat drove the men fran• A young captain from Ostend who had fought tic. IMany were suffering from eye trouble. But in the battle of Flanders and then escaped to they did not give up. What was considered im• the Congo led this unique convoy, which has no possible was accomplished. The convoy got parallel in the records of trans-African military through and reached the green valley of the Nile. expeditions. Less than five per cent of the equip• It was hard to believe that the spic and span ment was lost. The officers in their jeeps went lorries with their bright camouflage and gay ahead to scout, and though darting about kept Belgian cockade, perfectly lined up in a Middle the vehicles together over some of the worst Eastern camp, had accomplished such a hellish country imaginable. desert voyage. The Congo is playing a leading part in the Jeep Is No. 1 Desert Car considerable Belgian war effort on the side of During the eight weeks' journey the jeep once the United Nations. Eighty times the size of the again proved to be desert car No. 1. occupied mother-country, it has put its immense The "Seventeen Cliffs of the Devil," steep economic resources at the disposal of the Allies. rugged ridges in the Sudanese desert, are con• Its military contribution in Africa has also sidered impassable even by the natives. None been important. The "Force Publique" as the of them would accept tempting offers to act as Congo Army is called, helped to clear the Ital• guide for the convoy. Nevertheless, the officers ians out of the territories below the Blue Nile decided to push ahead. Driving through dense and thus free western Ethiopia. The bag in• clouds of choking sand-dust, progress was re• cluded 15,000 Italian soldiers with nine gen• duced to a mere walking pace. The heat towards erals. noon became so terrific that any movement was The Belgian Colonial forces then underwent unbearable. The fine sand penetrated every• a period of reorganization. British and Ameri• where and only an ingenious system of running can weapons and transports were purchased out repairs kept the vehicles on the move. The Bel• of the Congo Exchequer.

[300} The Semois at Bouillon These heavily-wooded green hills, rising from the banks of thei bemo.s are typical of the Walloon countryside described in the editorial. The Castle of Walzin. One of the many feudal castles in Wallonia "which like an eagle's nest in air hang o'er the stream and hamlet fair."

Tanneries at Stavelot. On the right bank of the Ambleve. Wings for Graduation. Baron Silvercruys, Belgian Minister to Canada, presents wings to a Bel• gian graduate ot a western Canada aviation training school. Inspection Parade. Many nationalities are represented in Canada's RAF training schools. Gen• eral view of Inspection Parade at camp No. 34, somewhere in Canada, with the Belgian flag flying in the foreground.

Belgian Students. Baron Silvercruys, Belgian Minister to Canada, seated in the middle of a group of Belgian students at a Canadian RAF camp during his recent tour of aviation centers where Belgian pilots are in training. NEWS FROM BELGIUM SEPTEMBER 18, 1043

A mechanized brigade of tliis modernized way. Every morning at six they take their sol• army is now in the Middle East undergoing in• diers on a stift' route march, across broken coun• tensive and tough training, in preparation for try, finishing up with a steep uphill climb on a further battles. rocky ridge. I witnessed a session of "battle inoculation." Soldiers Are Tall A battalion was ordered forward across an open stretch of teri-ain while mobile machine-guns Arriving at the camp gates over which the were firing live tracer bullets over their heads. Belgian tricolor flew, we were greeted by the Then the troops moved to\vard an objective smart present-arms of one of the tall ebony-black which was being plastered by mortar bombs and soldiers. Dressed in olive colored blouses and crept forward to within a hundred feet of the shorts, they are all over six feet tall, and the target. Bombs were bursting all around, uncom• high khaki fez adorned with the Belgian lion fortably close. The men heard the fragments badge makes them look even taller. These Neg• whistling by and could feel the blasts. The roes are fine looking men. They come from solid "inoculation" was certainly most realistic. stock, are unusually healthy and strong, honest, clean, devoted and loyal to their officers. Gaining confidence from the presence of their officers, the colonials stood the test wonderfully. They are rather disappointed at having to pause in the ^Middle East, having thought that They remained calm, responding promptly to they were heading straight for Belgium to de• orders. liver the "big white king" and his subjects. The training is being continued to accustom the soldiers to tanks overrunning their trenches More than half of the Belgian Congo officers took part in the short-lived campaign of l^Iay, as well as to dive bombing. 1940, and then escaped from Belgium and France. They made their way to the Congo, Streamlined Efficiency often at great risk and without any funds, to Further afield a battery of mobile Bofor guns rejoin the fight against the Axis. was maneuvering. The commanding officer gave The troops and N.C.O.'s are all native Con• a sharp order. Each gun captain blew a whistle. golese, who are no less eager than their white The lorries came to a standstill. The guns were compatriots to come to grips with the enemy. unhooked and swung into firing position. The The commanding officer. Colonel Haas, has a whole operation from the moment the order was long colonial experience and is not only an able given to the time the first round was fired, took soldier but a fine administrator. a matter of seconds. The same streamlined ef• ficiency exists in every service in the brigade. Want to Prove Worth Twenty-five doctors and 20 Belgian nurses The higher military authorities were at first look after the natives and keep them healthy and skeptical as to the value of these native soldiers fit. One of these nurses, a blonde, shy twenty- under modern warfare conditions. It was thought two-year-old Belgian girl, escaped from occu• best at first to use them as occupation and guard pied territory, was with the Congo forces in the units, but the Belgian Congo brigade had not Abyssinian Campaign, crossed Nigeria from come all this distance to take on a "janitor" job, end to end and is now in the medical unit of and they set out with impassioned determination the brigade. to prove their worth. The brigade major, a dapper, energetic man Family with Troops with a contagious dynamic driving power, who A family group of two brothers and a sister is putting them through their battle paces, soon are also with these troops. They, too, got out of obtained results which leave no further doubt Belgium when they were mere school children as to the excellence of these colonial troops. and now proudly wear the king's uniform. Officers Set Example These determined men have a single thought —to liberate their country and to avenge the un• The officers set a high example of devotion to happy defeat of 1940. duty and of military ability. They are continu- The crest of the Belgian Congo bears the ouslv with their men and live the same hard words "Vers I'avenir"—"Towards the Future."

[301] NEWS FROM BELOTUM SEPTEMBER 18, 1943

gian patriots and has recently been received out• 1. Belgium side of the country. This document shows that the Germans have opened an inquiry into the activity of Agra A, The War (Friends of the Great German Reich), one of Nazi Gas Preparations? — It may not be their own organizations of National-Socialist significant, but, acconling to the Dayton News propaganda, which is now in competition with Week, August 10, Allied officials have learned Kexism (Walloon Fascism). that Germany has recently started large-scale In the early days of the occupation, the Eex- production of new gas masks. Factories in Bel• ists, under their leader Leon Degrelle, were in gium, France and Germany are making the favor of a policy of collaboration with the Ger• masks as replacements for those issued in 1940 mans, but declared their party to be a Belgian which apparently are either in disrepair or out• organization, hoping to win the confidence of dated. These masks arc to go to both German part of the population. The patriots did not fall workers and civilians. And it is known that in into this trap, however, and, seeing that wiliness Belgium, at least, employers have been ordered was of no avail, Leon Degrelle, soon publicly to supply factory and railway workers with acknowledged Hitler as his Fiihrer and tried to masks. The Nazis know that if they use gas, re• prove, by fantastic theories, that Walloons were taliation will be immediate. And it would be really a Germanic race. natural for them to try to protect all Germans In the opinion of the Germans, this new trend as well as their labor force in the occupied coun• of liexism has diminished the importance which tries. they used to attach to the develpoment of the Agra organization. But as Agra declares itself to be "100% National-Socialist," it continues, B. The Occupation nevertheless, to enjoy special protection. Administration It appears from the document intercepted by the Belgians that a certain number of Commu• Quislings Heavily Guarded Against As• nists and Communist sympathizers who are en• sassination — Gerard Komsee, the Flemish gaged in luiderground activity are believed to Nazi whom the Germans appointed Secretary- have found their way into the Agra organiza• (ieneral of the Ministry of the Interior in Brus• tion, to secure greater liberty of action in Bel• sels, is so afraid of being murdered by a Bel• gium. gian patriot that he has arrauged to be guarded According to a report written by a man named day and night, even in his offices, by a squad of Gaillard and addressed to the Kriegskomman• officers and noncommissioned officers of the corps dantur, the purpose of the Communists of the of gendarmes, appointed by himself and chosen Namur district who have joined the Agra is "to because of their loyalty to the New Order. evade the vigilance of the German police." The In all Belgian administrative departments writer of this report adds that there exists in where quislings work, visitors are closely ques• Liege a secret Agra police force, consisting of tioned by special agents before being received "armed Communists." He also says that the re• by the enemy's collaborators. cruiting of volunteers for the Kexist Legion, incorporated in the German Army on the east• Namur Public Prosecutor Ousted — Ac• ern front, was sabotaged by members of the cording to information received from occupied Agra. Belgium, Mr. Verhaegen, Public Prosecutor at Namur, has been deprived of his office by the Economic and Social Life Germans. Germans Try Neiv Tactic to Secure Labor —The Germans are trying new tactics to secure Personal Notes the manpower they now need more desperately Fascist Organization Found Riddled with than ever. Those workers who are now in hiding Members of Underground — A document be• to escape forced labor, are being told that they longing to the Kriegskommandantur of Namur, will not be punished for nonregistration if they in occupied Belgium, was intercepted by Bel• will volunteer to work in the Liege coal mines,

[302] NEWS FKOM BELGIUM SEPTEMBER 18, 1943

where there is a drastic labor shortage. The ap• Resistance to Nazi Occupation peal has been published several times in the Women Sent to Germany. Liege Students (Jermau-controlled newspapers. Refuse to Register — About 200 women, At the same time, Belgian employers have been reminded, on pain of severe punishment, principally students and school teachers have that they are not to employ any worker without left Antwerp for Germany "to help with the a card showing that he has registered at a Labor harvest." Oifice. All Belgian women between the ages of 21 and 35 are liable for slave labor. In three More Rural Guards Needed to Protect months, between October 25, 1942 and January Crops — Newspapers published in Belgium un• 23, 1943, 5,500 Belgian women have been de• der German control call for a reinforcement of ported. Now girls as young as 16 are being the "rural guard," because of "the large num• rounded up forcibly for deportation to Germany ber of bandits who plunder the farmers, take for slave labor. away their crops and seriously compromise pub• Periodically the Germans announce that a lic order and the food supply services." group of Belgian housewives have left for Ger• many to do "voluntary" service on the land. Religious Life Out of 780 Liege students, only 1G8 reg• Trappist Monks Driven From Their Ab• istered for slave labor. bey — German military authorities have taken over the Trappist abbey at Achel, in Belgian Ration Coupon Thefts — Le Nouveau Limburg. They gave the monks a half hour to Journal, May 24, reports that: leave and forbade them to take anything with "Two policemen and two clerks of the food them. The Father Sujjerior was threatened with supply oliice at Chapelle-lez-IIerlaimont were execution if the command was not carried out just leaving a bank at Trazegnies, carrying ra• to the letter. tion coupons for distribution, when they were attacked by two armed men Avho forced them to Belgian Churchman Beaten by Gestapo— give up the coupons. The police fired, but the Canon LeClef, secretary to Cardinal Van lioey, men fired back and managed to get away with primate of Belgium, was recently beaten by Ges• over half a million coupons." tapo agents, according to Religious News Serv• The paper also reports that "on the previous ice, August 24. day two masked and armed men broke into the The Cardinal's secretary was carried away by house of Werion, burgomaster of Leval-Chaude- four Germans after he had stopped outside the ville, Beaumont. They bound and gagged We• Gestapo offices to help a Belgian who had just rion and made off with 200 complete sheets of been grilled by the Nazi secret police. An hour food ration coupons, 5,280 No. 1, 3 and 10 cou• later the churchman returned home, his face pons (bread, unused, and meat.—Ed.) and 50 battered. clothes ration cards. "At Mont-sur-]\[archienne, where the ration Cultural Life coupons for the Hales district were about to be American Novels at a Premium. Russian distributed, a man armed with an automatic Music Banned — According to the Pays Reel, pistol broke into the food supply offices and ask• August 15, German-controlled Brussels news• ed for them to be given up to him. paper, prices paid for modern books, especially American novels, are exorbitant. Gone ivith the Apparatus to Jam BBC Broadcasts Dam• Wi7id, by Margaret Mitchell, and The Rains aged — Belgian patriots have put out of action Came, by Louis Bromfield, bring "astronomical the wireless station set up in Liege by the Ger• prices." The Nazi newspaper considers this "a mans to jam B.B.C. transmissions. After dis• ridiculous demonstration of pro-Allied feelings." connecting the wires of the electric bell by whicli The same newspaper, on August 18, discusses the German sentry could sound an alarm in the the ban on all Russian and "Jewish" music, guard-room, the saboteurs cut the aerial cable of which has been in effect for some time. the jamming station.

[303] NEWS FKOM BELGIUM SEPTEMBER 18, 1943

Booksellers Boycott Neiv Order Publi• Food Basket of Africa — Export of agri• cations — Le Pays Heel, organ of the Rexist or cultural products to South Africa has shown a Walloon Fascist party in Belgium, charges Bel• considerable increase this year. The total 1942 gian booksellers and public libraries with sys• tonnage of 93,421 tons, sent there by rail, is 58 tematically boycotting all works issued by pub• per cent higher than the 1941 tonnage. Palm lishers who support the New Order. nuts, maize, palm oil, wood, peanuts, manioc The quisling newspaper adds: "In fact—and meal and coft'ee are the principle exports. To- this really is too much!—we are assured that da^', the Belgian Congo has become a sort of certain printers keep ready, and well hidden, granary upon which neighboring allied nations tons of paper intended for the most unexpected can draw. An outstanding example of this was work—that is to say, for printing manuscripts the immediate relief which the Belgian Congo by rabid anglophiles who want to write about was able to bring to the Rhodesians who sufl'er- the triumphal days, which will follow the ar• ed a serious famine in 1942. rival of the 'liberators.' How long will this com• edy last? W^hen are we going to get some sort Medical Schools for Natives — On Janua• of order in an organization (the Book Guild) ry 15, 1!)2G, several professors of the Medical which is supposed to belong to the New Order ?" faculty of Louvain University founded the ro- MULAc, or Medical Foundation of Louvain Uni• versity in the Congo. 2. Belgium Abroad The trading post of Kisantu, on the Matadi- In Great Britain Lcopoldville railway line, was chosen for the New British Film on Belgium — "The site of the first hospital and a school. The hos• Flemish Farm," a new war-film about Belgium, pital serves the sick from a district compris• has just had its world premiere at the Leicester ing 120,000 inhabitants living on the right Square Theatre, London. bank of the Inkisi River. The district also boasts The film tells a true story of a Belgian Air 17 dispensaries, 12 of which are stafi^ed by Force flag that was buried in a field, in Flan• nurses graduated from the FOMULAC school. ders, after the capitulation of the Belgian Army Small hospitals and maternity wards are at• in May, 1940. Several months later, a Belgian tached to the other five dispensaries, staffed by airman who took part in the Battle of Britain, missionary nurses. In three of these, FOMULAC in the R.A.F., returns to the occupied territory, has placed a native graduate medical assistant to disinter the glorious emblem and bring it to who is responsible for the medical direction the chief of the reconstituted Belgian Air Force of the center and supervises the sanitation of in the United Kingdom. He carries out his mis• the neighboring inhabitants. This medical assis• sion successfully, in spite of the German traps tant makes a monthly report to a doctor and has that he meets on the way. under his orders the nurses of the surrounding The subject is treated with all the technical dispensaries. resources of modern science at the disposal of sound films. ERRATA 11. Vaughan Williams, the great British com• poser, wrote the musical accompaniment, and No Ministers and too Many Greeks. the leading part is played by Olive Brook. In last issue of News from Belgium two typographical errors appeared which need to he corrected. 1. In the editorial p. 291, column one, line 24, it was said that the Germans in 1940 "decided to leave the in• 3. Belgian Congo dispensable ministers alone." There are no Belgian Ministers in Brussels, they are Rubber Exports 50% More than in '42 — in London: the text should read as follows: "the Ger• Rubber exports from the Belgian Congo, for the mans decided to leave the indispensable ministries alone." 2. On page 296, column one, line 10 from the bottom first six months of 1943, exceeded by 50 per up, it was said that the Belgian Congo has sheltered and fed cent die total rubber exports for the whole of "3,000,000 Greek refugees." Although Belgian hospitality 1942 and is more than twice the figure for 1941. is certainly willing to go to this extent, up to now only The output of rubber in the Belgian Congo 3,000 Greeks have enjoyed it. (It must have been the heat, or the humidity). is steadily increasing.

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