Tárogató, 1945-1946 (8. évfolyam, 1-7. szám)
1945-11-01 / 5. szám
TÁROGATÓ 13 ONE WHO LED THE MAQUIS Some idea of the responsibility that rested upon individual young sub-leaders of the Maquis was conveyed in a report given by one of them for broadcast in the B.B.C’s service to Europe. Though he had two years’ military experience, he knew nothing of the life of the Maquis, when he took command of fifteen men, all of different classes and professions— among them students, shopkeepers, mechanics and carpenters. Their quarters were in sheepfold, some seven hundred metres up, in the South of France. An extraordinary comradship and unfailing high spirits knitted them together. Selfdiscipline was imposed, and the men appreciated the need for living as a team under the authority of one leader. He found that once he had gained their confidence and friendship he could command their complete obedience. It was untrue, he emphasized, to suggest that their way of life made those young folk into bandits. They realized that circumstances forced them to lead an abnormal rough life, and their greatest hope was to see those responsible for those circumstances adequately punished. They were all supporters of De Gaulle, on whom they fix their hopes of doing “something” for France after her liberation. This leader had a special word of appreciation for the local civilian population. They had greatly helped him and his men, with whom I hey were entirely in sympathy. These civilians, moreover, were all pro-English, and often also pro-Russian in their leanings. Each leader had to use his own initiative when making decisions and to assess weather conditions and the nature of the country in planning operations. —Onward. came, threw off the obscurity of a petty Balkan kingdom to regain the glory of classical times, has earned not only the compassion, but the gratitude of the world. With the exception of Poland, perhaps no other lands has undergone so vile a form of Nazi tyranny. It was as if Hitler and his henchmen could not forgive the Greeks for having first “debunked” the myth of Axis invulnerability by soundly thrashing the Fascist invader, then defied the power of the Wehrmacht itself with fanatical fury. As a result, hundreds of thousands of Greeks were murdered in cold blood, or died from torture, starvation and disease in a land which became a vast Nazi horror-prison. As if all this were not enough, liberation last year did not bring immediate relief from suffering. It was followed by a bitter civil war which further delayed a return to normalcy from a world of nightmare. At first, all luxury goods, which in Greece meant everything beyond the minimum of food required to keep a spark of life in the body, were beyond the reach of the average citizen, for inflation ran wild in the land. Food, too, could be bought only at astronomical prices on the black market, and for most Greeks was obtainable only at government, British Army or Red Cross soup kitchens. With the passing months, however, peace returned to Athens and the other districts of Greece. The feeding of the populace reached a stage which was sufficiently well organized that some folk found the means and inclination to take an interest in such small wayside markets as this. The housewife is examining a somewhat shabby and scanty display of odds and ends of clothing, such as ribbons and suspenders, which even yet will seem to Athenians as the height of luxury. As the shops open, newspapers appear again, and life slowly resumes in Athens, people try to forget the long months of suffering which have passed, we hope for ever, from their land. —Onward. THE LOST CHALICE LIFE RESUMES IN ATHENS Greece, whose sorrow and suffering during the past four years has been beyond the comprehension of fortunate Canadians, is slowly returning to a comparatively normal existence. The brave little state which, when the test By ]. R. P. Sclater In a previous issue of this paper, there was an account of a certain Communion Cup and its strange preservation. Perhaps you remember how it was given by my own Edinburgh congregation to Mr. Adam Scott, head of the Y.M.C.A. in Etaples in France in the last war; OUR ENGLISH SECTION.
