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By René Kraus
MACMILLAN
EUROPE under the Nazi new order is a macabre place. An old civilized continent is being ruled by the methods of Tamerlane and Genghis Khan. Hunger and terror stalk everywhere. And, despite all the ruthlessness of the Gestapo, the spirit of freedom still finds expression in the armed struggle of Yugoslav guerrillas, in the occasional assassination or act of sabotage in France, in the more passive resistance of the countries of Northern and Western Europe. Mr. Kraus tells a vivid, sometimes lurid story of German oppression and of the means which are employed to combat it. His book abounds in racy anecdotes of the Nazi overlords and of the traitors and weaklings who collaborate with them. He describes in detail the underground press of France and Belgium and makes the point that the youth in the occupied countries stand almost solidly in opposition. The book contains some ghastly stories of sadism, perhaps the most extreme since the publication of Jan Valtin’s Out of the Night. Here it is possible that Mr. Kraus’s zeal and indignation carry him beyond the bounds of probability, or at least of verifiability. He is more positive about the attitude of the population in occupied Russia than the meager known facts would seem to warrant, and he leans heavily on the reports and publications of governments in exile, which do not always possess documented authority. But he ends on a realistic note: “Conditions under the New Order,” he writes, “will get considerably worse before the monster collapses.” W. H. C.