The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 89

1 DeadWoman Genflllu Mitchell's When She Dedicated Her Life to Fight Naziism in Jugoslavia's Secret Army, the American Heroine Became Also the Arch Foe of Macedonia's "Queen of Assassins" Whose Fanatical Adventures Provided Hitler His Best Fifth Column Now Which Woman Will Win? 3 Sister Must Fi I If 1 mm) wV i WW mks vvs Jill r4j i' 4 "m''m Mm. Ruth Mitchell Knowles, the Late General Billy Mitchell's Plater, Who Has Joined the Komitadji and Offered Her Life In the Undercover Battle Against Nazilnm. 1 1 By ALFRED TYRNAUER THE deadliest Fifth Column Hitler ever had was not his creation at all. It was handed to him on a blood-stained platter by a tubercular little schoolteacher named Mencia Carniciu, who also 'MX bears the title of "Queen of the Macedonian Assassins." One command from "Queen" Mencia was enough to cause the overthrow of Jugoslavia by the Nazi army. And it is a curious fact that the sworn enemy of this deadly woman is an American grandmother named Mrs.

Ruth Mitchell Knowles. sister of General Billy Mitchell, hero of World War I. How the feud between these two men started is as remarkable as anything that has come out of World War II and it all happened because nobody knew better than Mencia the sad history of her native could walk again. Ivan was wondering what to do with her when 1 i land, Macedonia. Day after day, the schoolmistress would drum into her pupils how the Balkan province had been butchered by the Turks "Queen of the The Former Homely and Tubercular Schoolteacher, Mencia Carak-iu, as She Looked With Her Made-Over Beauty That Spelled Doom for the Traitor Paniiza and Helped Bring About the Quick Overthrow of Jugoslavia.

I. I Serbs, Bulgars and Creeks. For 2,000 years this had gone on, she taught, warning her charges that some day they might wake up to find their fronts doors in Greece, their back doors in Bulgaria, their cows in Serbia and maybe their orchards in Turkey. The old-maidish schnolmarm would tell t'lem of her dream of an independent Macedonia with Salonika as its capital. Then she would cough her body shaken by paroxysms.

She had to give up her job, finally, and went to Vienna, believing that her days were numbered. It was there that she met other Macedonians who had also dreamed of their homeland becoming free. But they told her that one thing stood in the way a fat little fop named tials stand for "Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization" and like an iceberg, it was and is partly known and visible but mostly secret and unseen. It was formed after the last World War when Macedonia was divided between the Serbs and the Greeks. Bulgaria "Death to the Traitor," Mencia Shouted, as She Jumped to Her Feet.

With the Speed of a Striking Serpent, She Tlaced the PlHtol AgaliiNt the Smiling Panizza's Head and Fired Three Bullets Into Hl Brain. In less than two weeks, Jugoslavia was in the hands of the Germans and the Fuehrer told Mencia he was certainly proud of her work. No doubt after her successful feat, Mencia reminded the Fuehrer of his promises about Salonika and all that. Also, no doubt, he assured this valuable but dangerous lady that he will keep faith, as soon as the military situation permits. At the moment, the Fuehrer is in Russia which is a long way from Macedonia.

But Mencia sits and bides her time. She has other problems on her hands. The biggest one is that "silly American woman," as she calls her, who is one of the leaders of the Jugoslavia "komitadji." The komitadjis are somewhat like the IMRO, Mencia's organization. They were formed, like the IMRO, to "liberate their native land from the Turks and to protect the Christians there from the Infidels." In 1908 when Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, the komitadji turned their attention to these two provinces and worked against the Austrians as well as the Turks. Today the komitadji are organized to beat Hitler.

Shortly before the war began, Jugoslavia knew its position was dangerous and the komitadji added recruits to their ranks to help the army in guerrilla warfare. But Mencia's gang was strong and they won out in the end. One of the leaders of the komitadji is Mrs. Knowles, General Mitchell's sister. She joined the outfit last April.

Even though she is a grandmother, this American woman who spent much time in the Balkans before the war is a keen leader and directs the counter guerrilla warfare against Mencia. Mencia is worried and wishes that American grandmother would go home and mind her business and leave the Balkans to Mencia. So the battle between the two women and their gangs goes on. Everyone wonders why Mencia, a woman so tricky and clever to be able to deliver a Fifth Column, would turn it over for the empty promises of a man she knew would cheat her. "Often the best way to deceive the world is to tell the truth," she told me, "which is something Hitler has not yet discovered.

The reason for our seeming folly is policy. We have learned at last not to see around the corner of the future. Today we deal with today's enemies of Macedonia, without a thought of tomorrow. And tomorrow we will take a fresh start and deal with the enemies of tomorrow. Right now the devil himself would be a welcome ally in Macedonia's war of liberation." If the mistress of intrigue was telling me the truth, and I think she was, because she almost apologized for it, she knows the Nazis may become her enemies and she is preparing to deal with them.

If so, she and her assassins may prove to be no mean adversaries for the scientific assassins of the Gestapo. 1 I I' rumors began to reach his ears. Her fame had spread and people were referring to her as the of Arc of Macedonia." Reports came back crediting Mencia not only with the killing of Panizza but also half a dozen other crimes of equally epic proportions. Overnight Mencia became a one-woman crime wave and was accorded all the honor and respect that peasants of the Balkans give to such phenomena. When she sat with the other assassins in the councils presided over by her husband, she would overrule his decisions whenever she thought fit.

Her tongue was as sharp a.a mustard and she could lash it like a whip. The most hardened killer would quail before her onslaught Soon they began to look up to her more and more. It was not: "Ivan, what do you think?" but: "Mencia, what would you do?" And she would tell 'em. Things were going on like a hit and run driver with the cops after her when Mencia finally took the wheel from her husband's hands and drove the organization herself. She it was who first sensed the power of the Nazi movement and realized that it could be turned to account in the destruction of Jugoslavia.

So she went to Berchtesgaden to see the former house-painter with the Charlie Chaplin mustache. She promised the Fuehrer to destroy Jugoslavia for him in two weeks, whenever he was ready to strike. Her reward was a set of Hitler promises which she knew perfectly well he would not keep. But she kept hers. When the Germans struck at the country's strongest point, the wild mountains of South Serbia, where the defenders should have held out for a month at least, a surprise, even more Incredible than the unexpected collapse of France occurred.

Crack divisions of the Jugoslav army, under the command of one of its best generals, former War Minister Milan Nedich, were ready and waiting. The Nazi forces had to squeeze through mountain passes, which had been mined. But on rumbled the tanks to what should have been certain doom. Faithful watchers threw switches but nothing happened. Not a mine exploded.

From behind the lines, however, came rumbling sounds, like thunder in the mountains. These were Jugoslav munitions dumps, blown up by unseen hands. Even the crack Jugoslav mountain artillery soon had to cease firing. The brave, but betrayed. Infantry had been crushed by German tanks.

The battle of Jugoslavia was over. Nazi parachute troops descending on key points found to their pleasure that there were no sharpshooters to' welcome them, in fact, no one knew they were coming, because all communication lines had been sabotaged. A Photograph Of Mencia, In the Peasant got a tiny strip of territory. The Macedonians are more closely related to the Bulgarians than to the and they decided to do Costume She Often Used In Her Undercover Work. other two nations Todor Panizza.

Panizza was their sworn enemy and he must be wiped out. Mencia offered to do the job. Her request met with blunt refusals. A woman to murder this powerful gangster? Such an idea was obviously absurd. But Mencia explained she had only a few months to live.

If she failed, she would be dead before she could be sentenced. If she succeeded, well, one more traitor would be out of the way. Regretfully, her conspirators saw her point and agreed to the plan. She was to poee as a student of Vienna University, interested in Macedonian history. She would attempt to interview Panizza to get his ideas.

She would become his friend and then Mencia bought some new clothes and went to a beauty parlor to get fixed up. The spin-sterish schoolmarm came out transformed. Her mousy hair was died a fiery red and her cheeks bloomed with color out of a jar. In her Parisian clothes even her co-plotters couldn't recognize her. In her bag went a revolver and a phial of deadly poison.

-Panizza was suspicious at first When Mencia first went to see him, they were surrounded with tough bodyguards, but Todor was so intrigued with the intelligent and beautiful woman that he cast discretion to the winds. He took her to supper that first night to celebrate their new friendship. They went to a gay cafe and Mencia worshiped him with her eyes. Then they went on to see a play at the famous Vienna Burg theatre. Through the first act and most of the second, Panizza frequently squeezed the soft hand by his side.

He turned his head for an instant, his eyes caught by the action on the stage. Mencia jumped to her feet, shouting: "Death to the traitor!" With the speed of a striking snake, Mencia placed her pistol against Panizza's head and fired three quick shots into his brain. Mencia quickly admitted the crime and in a few weeks was on trial for her life. The trial was so packed with emotion that reason had little chance. Besides, her womanhood and her recently acquired youth and beauty, she appealed to Cte romantic Viennese because she committed the murder for "patriotic reasons," it all was the fact that her tuberculosis seemed to be killing her so fast that many doubted she would live through the trial.

There were groans ofdlsapproval when she was given a short prison sentence, followed by cheers next day when she was released to go home and die, which the doctors said would be in less than two months. She went home to her beloved Macedonia in an ambulance. She was the dying heroine of the hour and crowds packed the streets" to welcome her return, even though she was flat on her back. Chief welcomer in the throng was Ivan Michalloff, leader of the IMRO. These ini- something about it.

They formed the IMRO and concluded a secret treaty with the Bulgars to launch a murderous terrorist campaign against the Greeks and Jugoslavs. Regular raids were carried out and were mostly successful. But the leaders of the IMRO were bumped off one by one until only Michalloff was left It was he who had ordered his Viennese co-workers to get Panizza and it was natural that he should welcome home the lady who had done the deed. The doctors once more gave her up as hopeless. But Mencia had found a new inspiration.

It was Michalloff. Here was the man, she thought, who embodied all her dreams. In between coughs, she told Ivan of her hero-worship for him. The least he could do, he figured, was to marry the girl. After all, she had sacrificed herself for the cause, working under tremendous risks.

She had only a few weeks to live and no Macedonian woman wants to die a spinster. So they were married, and it must be added that love sometimes performs miracles. Under the startled eyes of her doctors, Mencia began to get well. The lesions in her lungs healed and it wasn't long before she 0 by American Weekly, Inc. Great Britain Rights Reserved..