The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1918-03-29

ELEWYT.-At Elewyt a mans
naked body was tied up to a ring in
the wall in the back yard of the
house. He was dead. and his corpse
was mutilated in manner too hor
rible to record. A woman's naked
body was also found in a stable abut-
ting on the same back yeard.
VILV0RDE.-At Vilvorde corpses
of civilians were also found. These
villages are all on the line from Ma
lines to Brussels.
BOORT MEERBEEK.- At Boort
Meerbeek German soldier was seen
to fire three times at little girl 5
years old. Having failed to hit her,
he subsequently bayoneted her. He
was killed with the butt end of a
rife by a Belgian soldier who had
seen him commit this murder from a
| distance.
HERENT.-At Herent the char
red body of civilian was found in
butchers shop, and in a handcart
twenty yards away was the dead
body of laborer.
Two eyewitnesses relate that
German shot civilian and stabbed
him with a bayonet as he lay He
| then made one of these witnesses,
a civilian prisoner, smell the blood
on the bayonet.
HAECHT.-At Haecht the bodies
of ten civilians were seen lying in
row by brewery wall.
In laborer's house, which had
been broken up, the mutilated corpse
of woman of 80 to 35 was discov-
cred.
A child of with it's stomach cut
open by bayonet was lying near
house.
WERCHTER.-At Werchter the
corpses of a man and woman and
four younger persons were found in
one house. 1t is stated that they
had been murdered because one of
the latter, girl, would not allow
| the Germans to outrage her.
This catalogue of crimes does not
by any means represent the sum to-
! tai of the dispositions relating to this
| district laid before the committee.
The above are given merely as ex-
amples of acts which the evidence
shows to have taken place in num-
bers that might have seemed scarce
ly credible.
In the rest of the district, that is
to say, Aerschot and the other viii
lagos from which the Germans had
not been driven, the effect of the
battle was to cause a recrudescence
Of murder, arson, pillage, and
cruelty, which had to some extent
died down after Aug. 20 or 81.
In Aerschot itself fresh prisoners
seem to have bee2 taken and added
to those who were already in the
church, since it would appear that
prisoners were kept to some extent
in the church during the whole of
the German occupation of Aerschot.
The second occasion on which large
numbers of prisoners were put there
was shortly after the battle of Ma
lines, and it was then that the priest
of Gelrode was brought to Aerschot
Church, treated abominably, and
| finally murdered.
One witness describes the scene
graphically:
"The whole of the prisoners-men,
women, and children-were placed
in the church. Nobody was allowed
to go outside the church to obey the
calls of nature; the church had to
be used for that purpose. We were
afterward allowed to go outside the
church for this purpose, and then I
saw the clergyman of Gelrode stand
ing by the wall of the church with
his hands above his head, being
guarded by soldiers"
The actual details of the murder
of the priest are as follows: The
priest was struck several times by
the soldiers on the head. He was
pushed up against the wall of the
church. He asked in Flemish to be
allowed to stand with his face to
the wall, and tried to turn around.
The Germans stopped him and then
turned him with his face to the wall,
with his hands above his head. An
hour later the same witness saw the
priest still standing there. He was
then lead away by the Germans a
distance of about fifty yards. There,
with his face against the wall of al
house, he was shot by five soldiers.
Other murders of which we have
evidence appear in the appendix.
Some of the prisoners in the church
at Aerschot were actually kept there
until the arrival of the Belgian