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Beatrice’s Family Typifies AlsatiansBy ED CLARKStaff CorrespondentSTRASBOURG. Dec. 3 — Meei Beatrice, ten years old today.Biue eyeo ana aubjrn-haired Alsatian lass, *he is as French as any ch id of Brittany or the M dcU hut like thousands of other children Of the Reich’s short-lived Weslmark she hardly knows a word of her native tongue.Her shortcoming* in languages are balanced, howevw, by a pretty, thorough knowledge ot war which make her schooldays someth ng far from golden. Take a look at heMfamily album.Just under the cover is a snapshot of her older brother Pierre, captured in 1940 during the Battle of prance. A prisoner of war in Germany'ever since; he was supposed to have been sent home before Christmas, but now that Strasbourg Is once more French, that fam ly reunion will probably await the end of the war in Europe, i Picture Of FatherA few pages farther is a picture of Father, most fortunate of the family. Just too young for the f rst .World War and a little too old for the second, his only military serv Ice has been peacetime training, al though he had v .pected the Germans to shortly order'hip to joip the Volkssturm.Turn more leaves and f-nd an old photo of Grandfather Otto. This man. w.th his handsome, moustache and field gray uniform, was killed fighting for the Kaiser in the Vosges in 1916. Fac-ng Otto is another older member of the family, Antoine who died a bitter and dis-appointed man after fighting a losing battle for France in the Franco-Prussian War.Beatrice had been a citizen ot Franc* until Germany incorporated Alsace into the Reich when she started school four years ago. In her family all members spoke neither French nor German but a local dialect which is principally lowr-Ger-man with a smattering of French. Children learned French*at school pntfl German became the one and dhfy lawful language in 1940.Otte-AntoineWith Beatrice is her other brother. Otto, who now calls hirrfkelf Antoine. Red-haired and thirteen. Otto-Antoine began scfiool in 193? when Strasbourg was French. He can remember enough French to ask or chocolate and make a nu.s ance of himself. The bnght spot in his schooldays -ame in 1940 when the teacher told the class to bring all their books :n to be burned.Any bright ideas that Otto-An tpine may have had about school being out for keeps were settled the next week when the teacher gave the class German texts containing the same problems as the r French predecessors.Otio- Antoine is looking forward to anothei book-burning bee. The more holidays the merrier.But Beatrice doesn’t think much beyono tocay. her birthday Her elbow = out of her little red sweater she chlis '’Vive La France.*' not Heil.* as the new soldiers pass her Tricolor-draped housesome throw her chocolate, not because the\ know today's her birthday. but because Beatrice will be very oretty a few more b rthday-from now.STRASBOURG(CottHnued front page 1)can said the teaching of French had been forbidden ja all high school here during the four years of Ger man occupationThe people here were well treated by the Germans, belter than the French m any other sectionCapt. George G. Stout, civil affa rlt; officer -ad. They received about two and a half times the food ra tioo the people :r western France, got. *The currency ratio has been settemporarily at If* francs to themark The German ratio was 20to oneAbout 75 percent of the city lt;civil an copulation is now here. Some organized FFi memoers have gone into action s nee the German * were driven from the city and some 3.000 civilian collaborator suspects nad been rounded up bv last Saturday.Heavy gunf re can still be heard throughout the day and n*gnt fr »m the direction of the Rh he, only •bout a mile away.Nazis Send. Out Plenty Feelers On 4Good' PeaceLONDON, Nov.jO —A German news broadcast ** yesterdV quotes the Foreign Office of Germany m a discussion of peace** terms which, wgs to be expected, puts the posftion pf the^Re ch government in much the same terms as did Adolf Hitler in his * pe5ce bid” broadcast a few weeks ago The nfewest statement on a peace —and it is a peace with a great, b g if’’--occurs in the German radio's descript on of a press conference m Berl.n ^Jresded over by a Dr. Schm dt descr.bed by the Germans as a spokesman for the German Foregm Office.The spokesman, after first denying that a recent conference between Germany’* ambassador to the Vatican and the Pope tiad any connection with peace negotiations, went on to say—and the quotation s given the way the “German broadcast gave it—that a possible peace was one wh ch would ensure the ex .st-encc of the German nation and the possession of the conquered territories. **Hit. r had earlier, in h s broadcast. stressed the same theme integrity as he put it, of the German nation and the safeguarding of Reich terrtor.es The most recent newscast mention of the peace specifically rejects the word, negotiations. Germany does not wish to imply that any negotiations are pcfually under way— indeed it is exactly the lack of ne-gotiat.ons wh ch seems to be troubling the Nazis. They are throw ng out repeated h nts as to the condi lions for an unconditional surrender —and there are no takers. * ?Oh, Baby!S'-RfEK fMR Paulette Goddaro 'vealeo yesterday in Hollywood that she is expecting a baby Tie it' June or July. The fi'n lt;iu*e 4 the eitt of Burgesi Meredith, actor and former Air Transport Command officer.
Newspaper Details
Mediterranean Marseilles Stars and Stripes
Marseille, Provence Alpes Cote d Azur, FR
Mon, Dec 04, 1944
Page 4
Full Page
Clipped by
Francois I.
FR 05 May 2024
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Mediterranean Marseilles Stars and Stripes
