VOL. IV, No. 27 JULY 8, 1944 NEWS FROM AND THE BELGIAN CONGO

BELGIAN INFORMATION CENTER 6 3 0 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK, NY. CIRCLE 6 2450

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Europe Will Never Die

The dry soil of Mesopotamia kept, for keeps coming back all the time, and one day our modern curiosity, the tablets on whichit may be a real part of our common cul• the overlords of Babylon wrote their cunei•tural heritage. form orders to their officers and to the keep• It looks as if there are no lost cultures ers of their granaries, but it also preserved and that whenever man does something for us the many fragments of that oldest andworth his while it is bound some day to most pessimistic of great epics, the Gil-flourish, to embellish and enrich the world gamesh poem, which scarcely anybody readsand its inhabitants. We are told to weep over and which is one of the most moving booksfallen empires and lost civilizations. No• man has ever written. Little more is left ofbody should weep over an empire. It is a the powerful empires those people built. Itpolitical structure and therefore a thing is enough. An empire has gone, a civil• subject to changes and adaptable to circum• ization has crumbled, but we reaped the stances. There are no lost civilizations. If crumbs. they are of any significance, if they have In Central America the white man de• any message at all, they spread out, they ex• stroyed the ancient culture of the Mayas pand into less advanced territories; intel• and the Aztecs. The jungle and the forests lectual and cultural endosmosis is a constant covered its pyramids, its huge statues of man-and marvelous reality. eating idols, its sun terraces and the highly The smallest millinery shop in a Mid• colored pageant of Indian life, with its gri•western tank town will call itself The Bon macing, inhuman heroes and cruel gods. Ton, as an homage to the France of the sev• Little is left of the Mexican and Peruvian enteenth century, the culture of which dom• civilization, little of it lives in us, but it inated Europe. The politico will proclaim NEWS FEOM BELGIUM JULY 8, 1944 that he stands for the rights of "hoi polloi"a few bombs, the great cities are laid waste, and confess by those words our indebted•irreplaceable beauty goes up in smoke and ness to Greece for all our political concepts.ashes. That which made Europe so attrac• France does not rule the continent any more,tive to foreigners, its picturesque appeal, neither has Greece any great power, but theis rapidly disappearing. Tourists will not good they once did lives long after their come any more except to visit the ruins. moment of material supremacy is past. Europe is so prostrated that she will not re• For many decades prophets of gloom andcover, "Thus speaketh the fool in his ignor• doom have been busy predicting that Eu• ance." rope was going to die. All around us ive Certainly Europe is ugly looking; she is hear that the British Empire is tottering, no longer the luscious beauty the mythical and people who otherwise would not even bull Jupiter carried away. Her looks are not hurt a mosquito are indignant that it doesso good. A few months before the war an A- not fall right away. merican woman visited provincial England. If the British Empire has to fall, it will She came back and wrote a book {most of do so for the good reason that when some•them do, and some even do well) in which thing has outlived its usefulness it withers she said that she had studied the English away and decomposes, but a living body isyoung people in the village pubs. She an• able to adapt and transform itself, to survivenounced that they were physical wrecks and by evolution. Before prophesying on that that they all had badly neglected teeth. She concluded that the English people would point one should be able to estimate to what go under at the first attack. extent that Empire lives in the heart of the members of the Commonwealth. Her appraisal of the situation is typical of that specific Greek trend of mind a great As for Europe, it has been solemnly number of Americans have come to consider casketed and buried by that scholarly Ger• as an ideal, — not to cultivate the excellence man gravedigger Oswald Spengler, but long of the mind or the perfection of the body before him by quite a number of Americansalone {except for women), but to require who wrote on the subject, and implicitly that man should have both and be as care• by all the immigrants from Europe who ful about conserving or improving his brains turned their backs on that Asiatic peninsulaas his looks. If Socrates had been hand• and renounced her once and for all. For all somer, he might not have been condemned of them Europe had died; they even re• to death. The good looking man on this fused to look back at her sickbed, but rush•continent is instantly 50 per cent right. ed to the wide-open arms of that wonderfulEurope is not good looking any more, nor stout lady in the nightgown who in Newwere the teeth of the young Englishmen, York's harbor proclaims, but the history of these last few years "Give me your tired, your poor. proves that both still can bite. Your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free. . Europe will never die, for Europe is a and whose name is Liberty. powerhouse and a melting pot of spiritual Now more than ever men think and say values the like of which exists nowhere else. that Europe is done for, Europe is dying. You can bring here the best of each country, Civil war has ravaged Spain, the greatest ofand it is fortunate that you do, but for one all wars sweeps over the whole Europeangeneration at least it will be eccentric, for• continent, leaving only three steppingstoneseign and accidental. Because a culture's over that torrent of blood and horrors, Por•greatness grows out of the apparent waste tugal, Switzerland, and Sweden. The love•which accompanies it, because for every liest monuments are demolished by only great painter it produces there have been

[214] NEWS FEOM BELGIUM JULY 8, 1944 hundreds of mediocre painters and thou• be said. Europe alone has pondered over sands of week-end artists. For every greatthem for centuries end ever so often, in author there have been millions of passable,some obscure corner of that continent, some• insignificant or silly books. For every cathe•body stands up, using perhaps a little known dral built there have been erected thousandslanguage, and utters the same old truths of annoying ogival monstrosities. You canwith a new voice. It echoes all over the derive great enjoyment from the isolatedworld. masterpiece, but to appreciate it to the full Millions of people have died in Europe; one must still hear in the background the millions have been slaughtered. Those who rumbling echo of all the attempts that failed,escaped from that hell and witnessed the of all the partial successes, of all the approx•sufferings and crimes must have a message imations and near-masterpieces. for the rest of the universe. It would be In Europe alone do people have time to unbearable to think that the shouts of an• devote to all this. In Europe alone people guish and terror of the fourteen hundred do not believe that they have the right to beJews who were pushed into a synagogue in happy. They are sad with experience and Lodz and burned alive there would not therefore humble when confronted with realhave an echo in the spiritual life of the happiness. Their art, their culture, express•world. It would be unbearable to think that es their amazement that anybody on this out of the monstrous crimes committed by earth could be happy for more than a fewthe Nazi there would be no flowering of hours at a time. They are the professional mercy. The Spanish civil war gave us the pessimists in this world of ours, as Ameri•fantastic story of the Toledo Alcazar: cans are the persistent optimists. seldom have human greatness and human They may be reduced to a second-rate cruelty been demonstrated more vividly by position, economically and politically; they both sides engaged in the fight. The history never will be morally or spiritually, for of Europe, old and new, is full of these every country in Europe has its word to say, incidents which tell us clearly to what in its own way. The statesmen of the earlydepths we can descend, what heights we nineteenth century spoke of "the concert can reach. of nations," of "le concert europeen." They Europe has been destroyed and maltreat• were right: the sound Europe makes is ed a dozen times at least. It has always sur• the sound of a concert, with its basses, itsvived : it has even given birth to a new world cellos, its flutes and its triangles. You needwhich is now guiding and leading the peo• every one of them; none of them is useless.ples. It is diversified and rich; it is full of Europe's cultural history is much like surprises and potentialities. It will not and Ravel's Bolero: the melody is always the cannot any more dominate the universe same, but each time it is repeated anothermaterially, but everywhere in the world instrument comes to the fore and interprets people who want to "understand the reason in its own way the basic motive. So throughof things," "rerum cognoscere causas," will the ages every European country has in itsalways listen to the lament from over the turn dominated the concert and influenced ocean, to the pathetic complaint of the vic• all the others. That melody will never end.tims as well as to that single great song of It is Europe's task to tell the world that hope Europe produced, not the proclama• there comes an end to the sunniest day,tion of a certainty but the expression of an that this lovely earth is a vale of tears, thatage-old longing, Beethoven's Hymn to Joy, the beauty and the beast both have to diewhich rose out of uncounted miseries and an ugly death, that life is an interlude, antrials. introduction and a trial. Those things should —THE EDITOR.

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flooded last March. The newspaper states: "The 1. Belgium dikes and dunes ranging the coast, and upon which the Atlantic Wall, properly speaking, has A, The War been constructed, are completely isolated in cer• tain places by the flood water. Soon they will Belgian Ships in Normandy Landing form a narrow strip of land between two seas." Operations. — The Belgian Mercantile Mar• The Brusseler Zeitung particularly points ine has again taken part in military operations. out that the Germans have surrounded the At• When the Allies landed in North Africa, a Bel• lantic Wall with water not because they con• gian ship was the first to reach the coast. In sider it too weak, but on the contrary, because the Normandy landings several Belgian vessels the water "will keep back their most redoubt• were included in the Armada which transport• able foe." ed troops, war material and food supplies a- cross the channel. The Belgian merchant service RAF Bomb Melsbroeck Air Base With• lost no ships. out Opposition. — During an attack by the All the seamen on the Belgian ships in the RAF on a German air base at Melsbroeck, Bra• invasion operations are volunteers. Many have bant, in occupied Belgium, the sentries and all been on active service since 1940, exposed to the personnel rushed to the shelters as soon as every danger of submarine warfare and experi• the alert was sounded. The liAF were able to encing torpedo attacks. bomb the airdrome without opposition, and no As a contribution to the Allied efforts in the German fighters appeared until the anti-aircraft liberation of the occupied territories, the Bel• guns opened up later. gian Government is bearing the cost of their According to the Belgian underground news• merchant navy's participation in the landing paper Vrij Volh, the German batteries sliot operations. down four of their own aircraft by mistake.

Twenty-Third Belgian Pilot Receives DFC 11 Ships Destroyed at Nieuwpoort. — A — The DFC has been awarded to the Belgian report published at states that 11 ships flying officer P. B. This makes the twenty-third berthed at Nieuvifpoort were destroyed and DFC awarded to Belgian pilots in this war. about 20 others were damaged during an air Flight Ofiicer P. B. was a test pilot in Belgium raid. previous to the war. He escaped from Belgium in 1942, joined the RAF and was detailed for photographic reconnaissance. Since February B. The Occupation 1943 he has made many operational flights Political Life over Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Bremen, Wil- "La Libre Belgique" Approves Belgian helmshaven and the Ruhr. The citation accom• Government's Foreign Policy. — The under• panying the award mentions his brilliant quali• ground journal La Libre Belgique, in its Feb• ties, his courage and determination. ruary number analyzes the foreign policy of the Belgian Government as defined in the Barbed Wire for Defense Works. — The speeches delivered in Great Britain by the Bel• German authorities in occupied Belgium have gian Prime Minister, . ordered the requisitioning of all barbed wire in La Libre Belgique is glad to note the Belgian use around gardens, orchards, and meadows, Government's desire for a close understanding, presumably for the hasty finishing of defense after the war, between Belgium and "a. Great works. The commandant's office at Louvain has Britain conscious of the part that she will be specified that the wire commandeered must be called upon to undertake in Europe." ' of good quality. It approves also the policy of rapprochement adopted in London by the Governments of Bel• More About the "Impregnable" Atlantic gium, Holland, and Luxemburg, and expresses Wall. — According to the German Brusseler the opinion that the small western democracies Zeitung the low lands extending behind the may become, on the Continent, "an advance dunes along the Belgian coast were already bridge-head of British prosperity."

[216] Modern Art in Belgium

James Ensor (born 1860). Detail from the "Desespoir de Pierrot." James Ensor is the most versati e of all living Belgian painters. At the moment he is their patriarch. The detail repro• duced here is significant of the way he handles form with striking economy of means. Jakob Smits (1856-1928). The Father of the Condemned Man. Detail. Jakob Smifs is a deep• ly religious painter whose work consists mainly in idealiied landscapes. The Father of the Condemned Man, however, is one of his major works in which he shows a deep psychological insight and a remarkable technique. Jakob Smits. Portrait of a Woman. With utter simplicity the artist attains an eHect of great depth and intimacy with the life of his subject. Henri Evenepoel (1872-1899). Fillette d la Cape Noire (The Girl with the Black Cape). Henri Evenepoel was one of the most outstanding painters of Belgium in the nineteenth cen• tury. He died very young and was ranked among the best exponents of the impressionist school. NEWS FROM BELGIUM JULY 8, 1944

~ La Lihre Belgique adds that it will not be to trains in motion, open the car doors and let possible for Great Britain to hold aloof from the coal fall out onto the track, where accom• Europe, and that if she will accept the part of plices collect it hastily. leader in Europe and effectually guarantee the The German-controlled press is forced to security of the western bridge-head that Bel• admit that if the coal ration was increased, the gium forms, between a France too thinly pop• black market in coal would probably come to ulated and an ever-dangerous Germany, the an end. Belgians certainly will have no ground for complaint. No More Oat Products. — Volk en Staat, German-controlled paper published in , Economic and Social Life reports that stocks of oat products are exhausted. Burial Services Affected by Gasoline As from the next rationing period, shops will Shortage. — Because of the serious gasoline obtain no further supplies. shortage, the city council of Brussels has had to impose strict regulations on the transporta• Stockings Complicate Rationing System. tion services for burials. Stringent measures — A circular has been addressed to all pro• have been in effect since May 8, with the pos• vincial authorities and municipal food and ra• sibility of further reductions when circum• tioning services by the ministry of Economic stances demand it. Affairs, concerning the distribution of rayon To effect the greatest possible economy of stockings. It lays down the regulations to be motor fuel, funeral processions have been done observed by wholesale and retail dealers and away with. Only the indispensable journey to gives specimens of the forms to be filled in by the place of burial is permitted. The body of a them. They must fill in 14 or 15 items every person who has died outside his home may not time a pair of stockings is sold. be carried back to the residence. Long waits at churches and houses of worship are no longer Decreasing Birth Rate in Liege. — For a authorized; hearses may stop only during the number of years Liege has suffered from a de• time strictly necessary for burial prayers. These creasing birth rate which will be fatal if it con• must be conducted in the morning or afternoon tinues, according to Le Pays Reel, enemy- at certain fixed hours. Eeligious services held controlled paper. The situation became even over the corpse are forbidden. worse after the creation of Greater Liege. The In addition, on account of disruptions in population of Greater Liege, which on December railway traffic, the city will no longer alloAV the 31, 1942, totalled 421,545, had decreased to transportation of bodies to the province by rail• 418,806 by December 31, 1943. During 1943 road. there were only 4,236 births, as against 6,310 deaths. Though the difference between the num• Coal Output Down 33% Since 1940. — ber of people leaving and settling in Liege was The average daily output of a miner in the only 665, deaths exceeded births by 2,0Y5. The Ilainaut coal mines in occupied Belgium has Nazis cannot account for this higher death rate, fallen to half a ton. In comparison with the out• but urge as a remedy that the population adopt put for the year 1940, the decrease amounts to the Nazi program! 33 per cent. This sabotage is reflected both in home and Resistance to Nazi Occupation industrial consumption. A German-controlled Patriots' Threats Cannot Save Comrades, newspaper reports that many industrial con• — The Gazette de Charleroi, Nazi-controlled cerns in the Kortrijk district have had to sus• paper, published an announcement issued by the pend operations, either on' accouht of the lack Mons Oberfeldkommandantur to the effect that 6f coal or failure to receive any supply of elec• "in atonement for several acts of terrorism," tricity. the occupying authority had arrested and de• The coal ration allowed to the population ported outside the country "persons belonging has become so insufficient that the black market to circles connected with the authors of the in coal has grown in proportion. crimes." As reported in our issue of June 17, The suppliers of the black market jump on the patriots sent letters to relatives of the col-

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laborationists against whom these alleged "acts declared, 'will require the collaboration of the of terrorism" were committed, warning them Belgian population. The delegates of UNEEA that if the hostages were not released, these re• —- a body whose function it is to administer first latives would have to suffer for it at the hands of aid to the liberated territories — and the re• the patriots. presentatives of the government and the Allied This bold stand could not prevail, however, military authorities will need your help to or• against the ruthlessness of the occupying au• ganize relief and the distribution of food. This thority, who announced that they were not dis• task will devolve, in the first place, on the muni• posed to take any steps as a result of pressure cipal officials. But in cases where they are not at "exerted by criminal elements." On the contrary hand or where traitors have usurped their func• they stressed the fact that the hostages would tions, our Allies must not be faced with a vac• answer with their lives for "any further harm uum. Qualified citizens in every municipality done to persons who have already been affected must contact the Allied representatives. With by acts of terrorism." this aim in view, the patriots must therefore Now the Germans announce that, in execu• combine and group themselves now.' tion of their threat, they have shot all the Bel• "There is no organization better qualified gian patriots who were arrested in the Mons than the Independence Front to carry out this district and charged with committing acts of job. The Independence Front is the reflection sabotage. of Belgium at war. Ofiicially recognized by the These reprisal measures were taken after a legal government in London, which has called fresh series of attacks against the German army upon it on several occasions, it is made up of and enemy collaborators. representatives of the political parties and pat• riotic movements which have waged the struggle Concentration Camp for Non-Payment of for years against the invader. It must therefore Fine. — A farmer who neglected to pay a fine be the task of the Independence Front to form inflicted on him has been arrested and interned committees of patriots all over the country who will be instructed to replace certain absent or in the concentration camp at Lokeren, East defaulting authorities at the time of the libera• Flanders. tion. "Experience has been gained already in North Patriots' "Liberation Committees". — Africa and in Corsica where, to the general The secret paper Front (central organ of the satisfaction, the patriots have assumed office, Independence Front) writes: "Today the tire• thereby facilitating the work of the Allies. It less activities of the Independence Front all will not only be a question of maintaining order over the country are entering upon a new phase. and ensuring the food supply. The traitors will "Each of us has two essential duties. The first have to be brought to justice, any Fascist demon• commands us to pursue the war on the home stration must be crushed, and any attempt at a front implacably, by helping the partisans, by coup must be nipped in the bud. The democratic checking and paralyzing production, by hinder• patriots who have fought for years in the ranks ing the enemy by our direct action, by disheart• of the Independence Front have acquired suffi• ening the collaborators and terrorizing the cient authority and prestige in their own milieu traitors. That is our daily job which we have to carry out this civic function with all the de• been carrying out for years now with constantly sired initiative. increasing vigor. Our second duty — and this is where we must speak in new terms to the pat• "The Independence Front therefore answers riots — commands us to prepare unceasingly 'Present!' to London's invitation. As from to• for the period which will follow immediately day, its militants must make it their task to form upon the liberation of the territory. We have patriots' committees which will facilitate the only a few months, perhaps a few weeks, before work of our liberators. In the great impending us. battle for the restoration of our liberties, as in "In a series of talks on the Belgian radio in the hard battles of the war, the Independence London, Mr. Victor de Laveleye has spoken of Front means to occupy a front-line position. It the supply of food and of the rehabilitation of therefore calls upon all patriots. Catholics, Lib• Belgium after the liberation. 'These tasks,' he erals, Communists, Socialists and those belong-

[218} NEWS FEOM BELGIUM JULY 8, 1944 ing to no party, to rally to us at once and help Pien and Josef Gorgels for robbery and illegal to form our liberation committees!" possession of arms. They have been executed. The German court-martial at Huy, in apply• Campaign Launched Against Enemy-Ap• ing the summary procedure recently decreed, pointed Municipal Authorities. — In the has condemned to death two Belgian patriots Mons district of occupied Belgium, the local accused of armed violence against the German committees of a patriotic association have sent army. an ultimatum to all municipal authorities ap• The Germans announce they shot two Bel• pointed by the Germans, saying: "Resign or gians and two Frenchmen belonging to a band get ready to die." of patriots in the Ardennes forest which had This society's secret news organ states that ambushed German soldiers. the traitors "are resigning abjectly," and adds: The special court in Douai sentenced two to "We ask all our committees to launch a further death, two to penal servitude for life and two to campaign throughout the country against the varying periods of hard labor. They were ac• 'collaborating' burgomasters and aldermen, with cused of being members of a band of saboteurs the slogan: 'We give you one month.' " "who had terrorized the Valenciennes region."

Patriots Continue Attacks on Traitors. — Paul E. Janson Dead in Germany. — The It is announced from German sources that Belgian Ministry of Information announces the twenty Belgians have been executed in reprisal death in Germany of Mr. Paul Emile Janson, for an attempt on the lives of two Rexists (Wal• who was Minister of Justice in the Belgian loon Fascists) of the Wallonia Assault Brigade, government at the time of the invasion in May which is incorporated in the German Army. 1940. A Rexist (Walloon Fascist) named Marcel Mr. Janson had remained in France after Delnoye, of Bressoux, Liege, was seriously the armistice, where he was arrested by the wounded during an attempt on his life. Germans and imprisoned at Fresnes. From there A Flemish National-Socialist named Antoon he was transferred to Weimar, Germany, where Walderus, of Kessel-Loo, Brabant, has been at• he died. He was 74 years old. tacked and seriously injured by Belgian patriots. Mr. Janson was an eminent figure in Belgian A Flemish Nazi named Corneel Francis, politics. He had been Premier of Belgium from an alderman of Wespelaer in the province of November 1937 to May 1938. As Premier he Brabant, has been killed by Belgian patriots. instituted a program of internal reforms, such At Alost, in East Flanders, a member of a as national equality of the Flemish and French National-Socialist brigade, named Lode Huyle- languages, unemployment and sickness insur• broeck, has suffered a similar fate. ance, the forty-hour week in dangerous occupa• tions and strict control of speculation. He was Executions. — The Germans annoimce the also in favor of strong national defense and no summary execution of two Belgian patriots who foreign alliances. "had cunningly attacked a German patrol." Born in Brussels, Mr. Janson attended the The German report adds that revolvers, am• university there and became a lawyer. He was munition and hand grenades were seized. a member of the Chamber of Deputies for many German sources announce the execution of years. After the first invasion of Belgium by three Belgians, arrested by a German patrol and Germany in 1918, Mr. Janson served his coun• found to be carrying firearms. try for a while in London. After 1918 he played A Belgian named Joseph Vaerenberg, charg• an important part in the rehabilitation of Bel• ed with the attempted murder of a German sol• gium. He was Minister of National Defense dier in a street at Jette, near Brussels, has been for a few months in 1920 and Minister of Jus• sentenced to death by the court-martial of the tice in 1927-31 and in 1932-34. In 1937 Mr. German Oberfeldkommandantur in Brussels. Janson was Minister of State for a short period The execution was carried out immediately. before becoming Premier. He was Minister of The Brussels court-martial has also passed Foreign Affairs the first two months of 1939 sentence of death on the Belgians Jules Logist, and Minister of Justice from April, 1939, until Frangois Van Uffelen, Alfred Hoyaux, Jean Belgium fell in 1940.

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Wave of Executions Follows Invasion. —labo r defaulters," or declare that they are in The invasion of Normandy was followed by a danger of arrest and ask Belgians to give them wave of executions in Belgium. Between June shelter. 10 and 20 the Germans published the names of Le Peuple, an underground newspaper, re• 27 patriots who were shot, including 21 for ports that patriots in occupied Belgium have sabotage. The German-controlled Brussels ra• shot a traitor who pretended to be a private dio and newspapers warn the population that detective, and who had opened a police training ruthless measures will be taken against persons school, planning to put his pupils into the Ges• who try to hinder German troop movements. tapo service. Reprisals against the railwaymen's families have been threatened. Recalcitrant Farmers Arrested. — The The Belgians are now keeping their wireless German-controlled Le 8oir stated recently: "A sets working day and night. This would seem final warning has been issued to the farmers to indicate that the population listens to the who refuse to surrender their produce. Severe broadcasts from London and Leopoldville, as measures will be taken if they do not carry out the German radio in Brussels is making cease• their deliveries within the time fixed." less attacks against those stations. Apparently this warning has not been heeded, since it is reported that under the new provi• Silence! Must be the Watchword. — A sions concerning the failure or partial failure warning to the people of Belgian to maintain to deliver cattle and other food quotas, a num• complete silence on the subject of the resistance ber of farmers at Opvelp, Neervelp, Vertrijk movement was broadcast from London Monday and Willebringen, in Brabant, have been arrest• night by Hubert Pierlot, the Belgian Prime ed and imprisoned at Louvain. Minister. The Allied Supreme Command, he said, had paid tribute to the Belgian forces of resistance for their work behind the German 2. Belgian Congo lines and for the disorganization of communi• Congo is Source of Precious Supplies for cations used by the enemy in transporting men Rehabilitation of Europe. — The Belgian and munitions. This action contributed to the National Radio in Leopoldville recently devoted Allied successes in Normandy. a broadcast to the statements made by Gover• To those who asked how they could help, the nor-General Pierre Ryckmans since his return Belgian government replied that they could from Great Britain and the United States. It and should help the resistance forces by respect• was brought out that the Congo is a storehouse ing their essential secrecy. Everyone should of valuable resources which will be available behave as if he knew nothing. Mr. Pierlot added, to the mother country as soon as it is liberated. "I labor this point because there has been too However, the supplies necessary for all the lib• much talking. Those who are responsible for erated countries will be grouped and divided the fight in Belgium are in imminent danger. among them, first by the military authority, and I demand that your watchword be. Silence! then according to UNRRA. The Allied Command attaches the greatest im• Mr. Ryckmans declared in a press conference portance to that watchword being punctiliously that the Congo must follow the example of the obeyed." Allies, who have agreed to continue with the rationing system in order to send food to the Underground on the Alert For the Ges• liberated countries. In this way the Congo will tapo. — Enemy agents are still trying to infil• be able to pool its products — palm oil for ex• trate themselves into patriotic groups or to find ample — with the resources of the Allies. out by other means the secrets of the resistance The Congo may, however, reserve for the movement. mother country certain products which are not La Voix des Beiges, an underground news• indispensable to the Allies. Heavy stocks of paper published by patriots in occupied Bel• Congolese coffee have been stored at Leopold• gium, warns its readers to be on their guard ville and at Matadi. They will be sent to liber• against Gestapo agents who, pretending to be ated Belgium as soon as circumstances permit patriots, make sham collections "for the forced- it.

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