Evening star., 1942-05-18
.Nazis 10 Conscript
Children Above 10
For Work on Farms
Hitler Youth PIotoons
And Companies to Be
Sent to RuroI Camps
By ANGUS THUERMER,

ASooSIdtCu fAcoo '" CD SSAtcopoA3SAs'
LISBON, May 18.-The children
OF Germany-from 10 years old up
will be drafted this summer and
fall as farm laborers.
BY thousands they will be rounded
up from the great German cities,
herded together in Hitler Youth
Platoons and companies, and sent
to camps in farm areas, where they
will be put to labor as hired hands.
In a tremendous effort to break
one of Germany's greatest bottle
necks, labor for farms, Hitler's. all
powerful labor leader, Fritz Sauckel,
asked for the child labor. He called
on Arthur Auxmann, Hitler youth
leader, to send out his 100000 uni
formed children to plant potatoes,
plow, weed and harvest the crops
for Germany's fourth winter of war
This duty afar from home, to
which all German children are
liable except those found physically
unfit, has been designated war
honor service"
Promised Three Week Vacation.
{ Since April IS and on until No
vember Is any German school child
can be expected to be ordered willy
nilly from his class into the field
anywhere in the Reich to work a
day or all summer.
The most they have been promised
. Is vacation of at least three weeks
some time during the summer work
period.
: Sauckel and Auxmann arranged
two types of this farm service for
children: Short-term work on call,
or long-term work distant from
home.
A farmer needing some one to
keep weeds down in his potato patch
will take his request to the village
Nazi farm fuehrer, who will order
the necessary number Of children
, out of their classrooms to do the
Job.
In other areas where lack Of farm
hands is a general problem, whole
battalions of children will be i'm
ported for summer-long work and
will be quartered in youth hostels,
Nazi party halls, barracks, labor
camps, or singly in farmers homes.
Given Sunday as Day of Rest.
Girls are not excused from the
farm work. They are expected to be
helpful to farmers wives in their
nurseries and kitchens.
The necessary movement of great
masses of youngsters will be directed
by the Nazi party children's evacua-
tion division, which heretofore has
been engaged in sending children
from bomb endangered areas.
Voelkischer Beobachter's account
of the program said children in the
work camps would be allowed Sun
day as day of rest, and would not
be required at any time to walk
more than 2 miles to their assigned
fields. a..
The youthful farm hands will be
fed at the farmers table. Short
term farm work children, not stay
ing at the farm homes, have been
told they would be allowed self
supporters ration books emitting
them to more food.
Voelkischer Beobachter said the
type of labor assigned would de-
pend on the strength of the chill
dren. The newspaper said those
10 to 13 years old would be expected
to do only light labor such as
hoeing. destruction Of pests, fruit
gathering, potato sorting and COL
lection of herbs"
Party to Pay for Clothing.
The extra wear and tear on the
closely rationed clothing of these
city children turned farm laborers
is to be made up, not by extra
allotments of scarce cloth, but with
cash payment by the Nazi party.
Since the average person can buy
no such goods in Germany today
no matter how much money the
children's mothers may get, they