VOL. Ml. No. 9 FEBRUARY 27. 1943 NEWS FROM BELGIUM AND THE BELGIAN CONGO I BELGIAN INFORMATION CENTER 630 FIFTH AVENUE. NEW YORK, N. Y. (fSpg^llflii 1 CIRCLE 6-2450 All material published in NEWS FROM BELGIUM may be reprinted without / permission. Please send copies of material In which quotations are used to this office. / ^ " THESE PERIODICAL BULLETINS MAY BE OBTAINED FREE ON^^^UEST. The Bmte and The "Lamb" In Failure of a Mission Sir Nevile Hen• painting now and then. Mr. Hitler would derson told us all about the great love Mr. have liked to have the Venus of Milo—but Hermann Goering feels for works of art, he heard just in time that her arms xvere especially when they can be purchased prac• missing. It seems he refused the present. tically without expense on his part. After Everybody knows you can't satisfy Mr. Hit• all, one should get out of conquered coun• ler with a fragment; he always wants the tries all one can. whole pie. Very often the lack of gratitude on the According to information received part of the "liberated" peoples gives Ger• through that brave little underground neivs- many only trouble — and more trouble. paper. La Libre Belgique, Mr. Goering has German soldiers and conscientious ad• been rewarded for his pains and labor in ministrators of concentration camps are Belgium. After all we should not forget assassinated by the populace, and even that he sent the Luftwaffe to Belgium in those few people in foreign lands, who May 1940,—t/iose splendid boys who wanted really understand Germany and are desir• to emulate the marvelous deeds of Mr. Mus• ous of lending Mr. Goering a hand, end up solini's fliers against the Ethiopians (those by getting themselves murdered by their treacherous aggressors who attacked tanks own compatriots. The insolent Belgians, and airplanes with bronze spears). These dis• Dutch and Greeks even claim they should tinguished young men killed 10,000 Belgian eat as much as pure-blooded Germans. women and children on the roads to France. Sometimes these scoundrels blow up bridges They really worked hard, but from time to and munitions factories. When Mr. Goering time ivere able to snatch a moment of fun says something of significance over the radio, and relaxation. You will remember in they brazenly make fun of it. "Liberating" Diary of a Nazi Flier how amusing the these stubborn peoples is really no joke. The author found it to dive down on Belgian only reward that can be expected is a little mothers running for shelter and frantically NEWS FROM BELGIUM FEBRUARY 27, 1943 pushing their baby carriages to safety. Those keeping and in June 1940 ordered this sum brave warriors, those blond Nordic demi• shipped to London. But the men of Vichy gods sent by Goering, did a really complete shipped it to Dakar, and when the Germans and thorough job, and they had some fun were informed of its presence there, they besides. But what did Hermann get out of asked for it. Mr. Petain, who is politeness it? A few headlines in the beginning—later, incarnate, replied, "If you want the Belgian nothing but headaches. gold, gentlemen, help yourselves; here it is, However, it is a wise man who abides his and have a good time." time and true merit is bound to receive its In May 1940, the Belgians—who know reward sooner or later. That moment has their Germans—had also shipped "The Ado• finally come for pot-bellied Mr. Goering. ration of the Lamb" to "safety" in France. He oives it to two distinguished Frenchmen It went as far south as the city of Pau in the Pyrenees and there it has been stored for —to Mr. Philip Petain and to Mr. Abel Bon- over two years in the local museum. But nard, member of the Academic Frangaise only a few weeks after the Germans march• and Minister of Fine Arts in the Vichy Gov• ed into Vichy France, Mr. Bonnard of the ernment. These gentlemen have handed to French Academy couldn't resist Mr. Goer• Mr. Goering the greatest, the most extraor• ing's request, and he shipped the altarpiece dinary Flemish painting of all times: "The of the Ghent Cathedral to the foul murder• Adoration of the Lamb" by Jan van Eyck. er of the Luftwaffe. The underground newspaper. La Libre Bel• Of course it is only a painting. It gique, states that the editor waited a long is not even a new one. It had been time before releasing the news. When re• hanging for 500 years in a small dusty ports first came through it sounded unbe• chapel in Saint Bavo's Church in Ghent. lievable, but he carefully checked the When visitors from the four corners of the sources and found the information to be earth came to see it, they usually became correct. silent in the presence of a work which was Notwithstanding its brief existence, the majesty and beauty itself. For Flemish art, Vichy Government has already acquired for Flemish sensitivity, for science, poetry and religious philosophy of the late Middle very definite traditions. Every state, every Ages, it had the same significance as Dante's government should have traditions. A good Divina Commedia for Italy. It was the culmi• set of traditions is to a government what a nation of every idea, every loyalty the man mink coat is to a chorus girl. Didn't Mr. of the Middle Ages had. In it was concentrat• Hitler tell the United States that it was a ed everything he liked or loved in visible country which would fall apart at the first creation or in heaven. A people may quarrel shock, just through lack of tradition? The among themselves; they may be divided on a Vichy "Government" has developed a won• great number of questions, but there will al• derful tradition of vileness and degradation ways be some elements which in times of dan• that scarcely will find its equal in history. ger have the magic power of uniting all na• Nobody in Europe is more energetic when tional energies. The Greek historian Thucy- it comes to throwing themselves at the feet dides tells us that in times of national depres• of the Germans. They can't be outdone in sion or political despair Pericles used to ad• that field; they possess to the highest degree dress the Athenians and say, "Look at the what in European politics used to be called, Acropolis; look at the Parthenon," and "de I'energie dans I'aplatissement." when the Athenians heard these words they At the outbreak of the war the Belgian were so proud of what they had accomplish• Government gave 230 million dollars worth ed in the world that they forgot their trou• of gold to the Bank of France for safe• bles and united against the common foe. [66] NEWS FEOM BELGIUM FEBEUART 27, 1943 The majesty of Jan Van Eyck's "Adora• die an ugly and well-deserved death. The tion of the Lamb" had the same magic ef• altarpiece of Ghent, the very heart of Flan• fect on the people of Belgium. Each of them ders, is a captive in Germany. It has joined felt as if he had painted it. Nobody was in 70,000 soldiers (mostly Walloon) still em- a position to explain its every detail but prisoned in German camps. It has joined everybody felt that this compendium of sci• our 300,000 workers abducted for slave la• ence and art, harmoniously united, was the bor in the Reich. very symbol of the national soul. From now After the last war, the Versailles Treaty j on it will adorn the drawing rooms of Mr. provided for the return to Belgium of two ! Goering and his ponderous spouse. These of the panels of the van Eyck polyptych. It vulgar parvenus will show their "acquisi• was restored again in all its glory, and for tion" to their many servile friends, and some 25 years it could be seen in the chapel for scholarly pedant will write at least 2,000 which it was painted in 1432. It will come pages of gothic print to prove that the Bel- back to its home in Ghent unstained, reful• ^ gians never realized what this painting real• gent with the genius that produced it 500 ly meant and how great a "German" Jan years ago. Goering will not taint it. In its k van Eyck was. five centuries of existence, it has survived ' The Germans thought they would win the sieges, wars and revolutions. It will survive Flemish people of Belgium over to their the repulsive promiscuity of that boisterous cause. Their efforts were in vain. German Falstaff, H. Goering. For the spirit has al• torturers are murdered in alleys at night. ways survived brute force. Quislings totter into canals and ditches to —THE EDITOR. Food for the Children of Belgium The New York Times, Febrmry 19, print• tion in Greece. According to the statement, it ed the following story on a joint appeal by 43 has the approval of the spokesmen for the con• Protestant leaders in the United States urging quered nations, while the supplies, shipping and that children, nursing and expectant mothers money needed to put it into effect are all ready. and invalids he fed now in order to prevent them Bishops, college presidents, deans, professors, heads of church organizations and clergymen are from perishing before the war's end: among the signers of the document. They ex• Warning that a large part of the population pressly dissociated themselves from "former of Belgium, and possibly of other conquered President Hoover's various feeding schemes and European countries, may die of starvation be• from the agitation of pacific and isolationist fore the end of the war unless they get help groups." from abroad, a group of forty-three Protestant "Two years ago," the statement said, "we leaders issued a joint statement last night urging joined in opposition to propaganda put forward this country to make immediate shipments of by former President Hoover and others for the dried milk and vitamins for children, nursing feeding of Continental Europe.