Laurel outlook., 1944-05-31
Women in War
Last Half Year
Anti-Nazi Underground in
Europe Takes Heavy
Toll of Helpers.

LONDON. - The average active
life of a woman in Europe's anti
Nazi underground" is five to six
months.
The lives of 200 women in Czecho-
slovakia were taken for the as
sassination of Hitler's hangman,
Reinhard Heydrich.
Their total deaths in all Europe
are not disproportionate to women's
share in underground activities, for
in at least two countries, France
and Holland-where much of the
manpower has been kidnapped for
Germany-women outnumber men
in the underground. Their able help
ers are their own children.
"At the beginning" says Maria
Brzeska, an escape power of the
Polish underground, there was a
general feeling among men that
women wouldn't be discreet. But
they gained confidence when they
realized that women could be tor
tured and still didn't give away
secrets"
In Poland a girl in her teens was
beaten to death with steel whips but
refused to turn informer on the I'M
foreground paper for which she had
been a reporter.
Aid in Executions.
In this girls country one monthly
periodical "Zywia" and one paper
for children "Biedronka" are stated
completely by women, and they
work in cellars and garrets OF 100
other Polish underground publica-
tions.
They carry messages and mount
guard at secret headquarters and
work with men in carrying out the
execution of Nazis condemned by
their secret tribunals.
So thorough is their infiltration
that German papers in Poland carry
warnings to the soldiers that the
barmaid, the waitress, the milk
maid on the farm all belong to the
underground and are listening care
fully to their secrets.
In Czechoslovakia, where more
women have been executed by the
Gestapo than in any other European
country, they still lead the Ego slow"
campaign in factories.
There is yet another kind of I'M
derground on the home fronts of
the various occupied nations. In the
evenings at their mothers knees,
children who are forced to attend
Nazi drill camps, have a love of
liberty and democracy instilled into
them.
"This," said one Czech. living in
London, "is more important than
any act of sabotage"
Children Are Saboteurs.
Children, themselves, are special
lists in the acts of sabotage. Their
natural halloween prankishnesS
turns to skill in giving wrong direc-
tons to German soldiers, taking
down the Municipalities at German
apartment residences, scrawling vic
tory messages in public places.
Polish women try to keep the chill
iren indoors as much as possible for
protection. But there is always the
spectacle of the wild children
With no home, sleeping where they
IAN, begging, stealing, selling
3adgets in the market square.
Sometimes they are loaded onto
rains for deportation. One of the
irst times this happened, word, by
way of the underground, reached the
women of Warsaw. They waited at
he station day and night until the
rain came through, broke into it
md succeeded in rescuing $50. 9th
trains were rerouted.
In one country, Y~ugoslavia, the
york, according to Mevente Gull
and, "isn't underground any more.
It's out in the OPEN"
Women are in the fighting ranks
With men, manning machine guns,
landing sentry duty, taking part
n guerilla attacks. One woman rose
0 be commander of a women's ma
hine gun unit.