Fort Worth Star-Telegram from Fort Worth, Texas • 6

AMP Congressmen Editors to View Atrocities in Reich BY CASKET WOMAN AND CAT KEPT EERIE 5-MONTH VIGIL WILKINSBURG Pa April 21 being told how Mary Woodward kept her mother's mummified body for 32 years at her home in 'Washington Funeral Director Edgar Eaton Saturday revealed the most bizarre episode of his the story of a woman a cat and a casket on March 30 1912 Eaton received the body of Mrs Wood-ward's 81-year-old mother from a funeral home in St Louis A few hours later Mrs Woodward arrivedaccompanied by a cat Every day for nearly five months the woman and the cat came to the funeral home and sat beside the casket Asked why Mrs Woodward said she did not have enough money for a mausoleum to keep her mother's body above ground Where the woman and the cat stayed at night Eaton never learned He knew merely they came each morning and went away each night In -August the board of health ordered the body removed or buried Mrs Woodward asked that it be shipped to Washington where she planned burial Eaton was particularly impressed by the report of a stuffed animal found in Mrs Woodward's trunk He believes that was the cat she brought to the funeral home c- Itii S4 Sunday April 22 1945 Sec FORT WORTH STAR-TELECRAM Y' I FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM Sunday April 22 1945 6 Sec 1: r-7' i 1 1 i A etiff4 e-7 i lif 1- 3 1- 0J 4 1 4 ilk 4 04 'I 21 001F 1 V7' 41 4-- I ItiA ir 1V" t) k'ti I 'S 4 4 ''''e ap7I''''' A 4 1 144 rJ N- 4 A 3' it Sq (11' 1 4 rlor41141 i i or ow 'wor -77p41 --------1 N71 12 R-1 -44-1: 1 PRO I 111 REPORT VET HOSPITALS OK I WASHINGTON' April 21 processes "undue delay" end Investigating congressmen said duplication of effort in handling Saturday nothing had been dis- beneficiaries' claims for depend- 1 covered to substantiate charges ency pension and national service I that "shocking mistreatment" is life insurance of men who the being given patients in Veterans or are killed in the armed forces Administration hospitals The Veterans Administration Coincidental with that develop- Jones said in a statement even ment the Veterans of Foreign had once requested "a mother 81 Wars criticized the policies of the years of age to secure a statement Veterans Administration in han- from the midwife in attendance dling insurance claims at her birth" in order to establish Generally good conditigs pre- proof of her age on an insurance 1 vail in the veterans' hospitals a claim number of congressmen reported In conducting the congressional on the basis of a personal survey investigation of the veterans' hosof various institutions throughout pith's Chairman Rankin of 311 Is- the country sippi of the House Veterans ComNo evidence has been found mittee authorized each member they said to support the conten- of the committee to function as tions of Representative Philbin of a one-man subcommittee in check-Massachusetts and others that scandal exists" in the treatment "a ing the allegations of mistreat- ment of wounded veterans In questioning the Veterans Ad- Rankin declined to make public ministration handling of insurance the full reports of the various claims Casey Jones national serv- committeemen at this time Instead ice officer of the VFW said the they will be asked to make them VA was afflicted with "red tape" as witnesses at hearings he expects to start within a few days How- ever Rankin gave a reporter this I ROCKETS USED IN summary of the findings: "Nearly all the reports are in and they show that our veterans 1 OUICKTAKEOFF are receiving fine treatment and handling in their hospitals A BOMBER BASE IN "There have been some cases ENGLAND April 21 VP) found where improvements are Aided by rockets Capt Rich- needed and we shall take action ard Holub of Grass Valley to see that these situations are remedied as soon as possible" Cal took a Flying Fortress off "There has been nothing clisthe ground recently after a run covered however to bear out the of only 372 feet The normal charges made that shocking mistakeoff requires 800 or 900 treatment is being given veterans" fM e---- eN-1 v----t- 41 ROCKETS USED IN QUICK TAKEOFF A BOMBER BASE IN ENGLAND April 21 (len Aided by rockets Capt Richard Holub of Grass Valley Cal took a Flying Fortress off the ground recently after a run of only 372 feet The normal takeoff requires 800 or 900 feet I THE PROPAGANDA FRONT Goebbels1 Great Lie Minneapolis Star-Journal Duke Shoop Kansas City Star Beverly Smith associate editor American Magazine Walker Stone editor Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance Walter managing editor Houston Chronicle For Representative Richards it will be the second visit to European battlefields since the war started He was in France and England last fall at the height of the German vengeance weapon campaign Prior to announcement of the selection of the congressional investigating group Representative Gossett of Texas said he would offer a resolution for a congressional war crimes investigating committee to fix responsibility for enemy atrocities Representative Flood of Pennsylvania reported sumilar plans Senator Brooks a member of the Army's tour group announced plans to propose naming a congressional inquiry committee but abandoned the idea when heifound such a group already being selected CONFERENCE DUE TO GET HORROR REPORTS LONDON 'April 21 hand reports to the San Francisco conference by British and American legislative delegations on the horror of Nazi concentration camps appeared in prospect Saturday General Eisenhower issued an invitation Friday night for 12 congressmen to visit the scenes A British parliamentary delegation set out from London Friday Diplomatic quarters contended that a joint report to the conference would provide a powerful argument for a strong peace The Daily Mirror reported that throughout Britain movie goers unable to look at pictures of the camps had walked out of theaters "In many places there were soldiers to tell them to go back and face it" the paper stated "It's the only way to break the namby-pamby attitude toward Germans" the newspaper quoted one soldier as saying WASHINGTON April 21 Congress and the Army Saturday arranged to send a delegation of 12 lawmakers and 17 publishers and editors to see first hand evidence of Nazi atrocities General Eisenhower in urging that such a delegation be sent had said that the conditions pfevailing in overrun prison camps are "almost impossible to describe in words" The 12 Congressmen designated Saturday will join three Republican Boohe Luce of Connecticut John Kunkel of Pennsylvania and Leonard Hall of New tre already on the scene A 10-member group from the British Parliament is undertaking a similar first hand inspection Barkley in Group The War Department said it will fly the following men to Germany within a few days: Senators: Barkley of Kentucky majority leader George of Georgia Thomas of Utah Brooks of Illinois Wherry of Nebraska and Saltonstall rIf Massachusetts Representatives: Thomason Texas Richards of South Carolina Izac of California Mott of Oregon Short of Missouri and Vorys of Ohio Newspaper and magazine representatives will be: Julius Ochs Adler vice president and general manager New York TimesMalcolm Bingay editor Detroit Free Press Norman Chandler general manager Los Angeles Times William Chenery publisher Collier's Dimitman executive editor CMtago Sun Ben Hibbs editor Saturday Evening Post Stanley High associate editor Reader's Digest Ben McKelway editor Washington Star Glenn Neville executive editor New York Daily Mirror William I Nichols editor This Week Magazine Nicholson president and editor New Orleans Times-Picayune Joseph Pulitzer editor and publisher St Louis Post-Dispatch Gideon Seymour executive editor Factory Is Crumbling 70017 140) tiodilia11141iAli at 4 7: -t1' 4' BENEFICIARY OF Pblish prisoner lib: erated by the 1st Army from a prison camp at Dossel Germany is another striking indictment of Nazi practiced on helpless prisoners The man is delousing his clothing before evacuation (INS Photo) BI en Dc 'lc is Early Sworn In as Special Truman Aid Gen Carl Spaatz saw the experiment Six rockets of the type used by British Royal Navy planes were mounted under each wing Holub conceived the idea His only passenger was Sgt Raymond Kirkpatrick of Eufaula Okla The plane used in the experiment was one which had been forced to land short of its home base because of flak datnage Long strips of steel matting were laid on the plowed field to serve as a runway Rocket takeoffs from carriers and from the water had been reported but service command officers believed this was the first time rockets were used for land-based craft DAVID LAWRENCE says: 'Succession' Rule Needed DJ ed control strike mighty blows by itself in the war By transmitting a sensational lie properly timed it could as it did break into the programs of American radio networks and get a hearing Many an American newspaper fell for its fakes Its masterly build-up of the "Katyn murders'? caused the break in relations between Russia and Poland Its trick of posing as a BBC station caused bad blood between American and British troops at the front And all over the world it contributed to man's prejudices and intolerance But last week the Nazi voice nearly died away The great Zeesen transmitters went off the air for as much as 19 hours a day Some were not heard at all All were weak General Dittmar the most effective of all the Berlin propagandists because he sounded the most truthful and restrained was reported a suicide lIadamowsky a power in Goebbels' machine was reported killed All but two of the American radio traitors in Berlin had bcen silent for weeks or months Only Donald Day the former Chicago Tribune correspondent and Bob Best remained with the sinking ship and their harangues became more infrequent No doubt in his mountain lair Hitler will set up a radio transmitter or two But like that of his once mighty army its power will be spent WASHINGTON April 21 (INS) Stephen Early who was press secretary jo the late President Roosevelt was sworn in Saturday as a special assistant to President Truman At the same time Mathew Connelly took the oath as senior secretary to the President The ceremony took place in Truman's office The White House said that Early will remain as the President's special assistant until early June when he will leave for a private job as he had planned to do before Roosevelt's death I Parents Seek Safety for 3 Sons 3 Others Killed GIRL OUT OF HOSPITAL 28C DAYS AFTER CIRCUS FIRE THAT MADE HER ORPHAN PLAINVILLE Conn April 21 Patricia Murphy is home after 288 days in a hospital but it is not the same home she left last July 6 to go to the circus in Hartford She is Aiving now with her uncle John A Murphy Her parents Mr and Mrs Walter Murphy and her brother Charles 4 died with 165 others in the big fire that razed the Ring ling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey big top and Patricia was burned on the arms legs and hands besides suffering internal injuries She was the last of the circus fire victims to leave the hospital Physicians feared for a time she never would walk again but when her uncle came for her Friday the little girl insisted that she was going to walk from her room to the elevator She collapsed however after taking several steps but doctors say there are now some grounds for faith in Patricia's confidence that eventually she will be able to walk and run about like other youngsters Edward Iktrozek 31 having been killed in France last July 15 Lt Chester Mrozek 24 who was in Texas after completing 25 bombing missions in Europe obtained an emergency leave to come to Chicago and console his parents Friday they were notified that a transport plane crashed near Sweetwater Texas killing him and 24 other officers Two of the surviving sons are in Germany and the third in Hawaii Edwin 19 classified 1-A is at home CHICAGO April 21 A Chicago couple advised of the death of their third son while in service Friday night appealed to the Red Cross to ask the War Department to assign three-surviving sons to noncombat duty in the United States Mr and Mrs Martin Mrozek on Thursday said they were notified a son Staff Sgt Stanley Mrozek 28 was killed on March 30 on Luzon He was the second to die Sgt 4'" 4 A 10111614::::: transition When Prime Minister Chamberlain's ministry lost the confidence of the British parliament in the spring of 1940 Winston Churchill came into office even while the British forces were being evacuated from France and Belgium There was no hiatus Advantages Clear Except when a President of the United States dies there is no immediate transfer of power and yet the clear advantages of overnight assumption of presidential duties were never more clearly demonstrated than when on April 12 the death of Roosevelt was flashed at 5:48 and Harry Truman took the oath of office at 7:09 of the same day In 24 hours the world learned that the San Francisco conference would go on that leadership of our armed forces would remain unchanged and that in a broad sense the Roosevelt foreign and be fulfilled Anyone can judge for himself how remarkably effective the transition has been And public opinion outside of Washington has rallied as have both parties in Congress to the new President's support a remarkable exhibition of national unity It would not require a constitutional amendment to make succession immediate The Congress has already provided that when a vacancy in the office of President and Vice President occurs the Secretary of State becomes President Hence by appointing the newly elected President to be Secretary of State transitition can be effected within 24 hours of election day Congress Could Specify Incidentally Congress has the power to provide by law how to fill a vacancy that occurs in the office of both President and Vice President Thus as the la now reads the Secretary of State succeeds to the presidency but Congress could next week pass a statute specifying that the successor to a President shall be chosen by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress each state delegation voting as a is along the lines of the method stipulated in the Constitution when there is a contest in which no candidate re WASHINGTON April nation has had a week to size up what happens when there is a change of administration in the midst of a world war The change tends to prove and disprove certain previously held conceptions Those who believed such a change of leadership would affect the conduct of the war have been proved wrong Those who believed that continuity of administration is essential to prevent widespread misunderstandings of foreign policy and uncertainties have been proved right In the last presidential campaign the argument was made that change might be disastrous would slow up the war and create uncertainty abroad The change last week can not be compared really to a change brought about by an election For it is the two and a half month interval between election and inauguration which pro duces the uncertainty If anything has been proved conclusively about the transition that has just been rnade from Roosevelt to Truman administrations it is that the American people ought never again be subjected to that interval between election and inauguration 1932 Suggestion When President Hoover was defeated in November 1932 this correspondent suggested that he ought to appoint Roosevelt Secretary of State and then resign along with Vice President Curtis so that sue- cession could be immediate Whether America could have been spared the economic agony of that bank holiday on inauguration day by placing the Roosevelt administration into power prompt' ly in November 1932 can be argued rather persuasively when one examines the record of rumors of forthcoming gold devaluation and other disturbing reports current in the financial markets and among the banks between November 1932 and March 4 that may have led to the undermining of public confidence which brought On runs on the banks in February 1933 The parliamentary system of government of course such as prevails in Canada and Australia and the United Kingdom makes possible an immediate overnight WA natior what chang midst The disprc conce such affect been 'believ istrati wides: foreig have In the chang slow certai 'week to a 1 electii 'half tion duces has 134 the ti made admin ican 3 subjec electh Whi feated respoi to apl State Vice cessio Whi been -of thz tion admin 'ly in gued exami forthc other the fi the bi and may I of put -on ru: -1933 The goven prevai and possih Clare Boothe Luce and Fellow Lawmakersal Atrocity Camp I PRIVATE IIRNCIRIK DAFTYNITIONS by Paul Gilbert 1 BY WILLIAM SHIRER The great Nazi propaganda machine which the evil genius of Hitler and Goebbels built up to bend Germany and the world to their criminal designs was crumbling last week Some of its leading lights were dead or silent Most of the powerful short-wave radio transmitters at Zeesen near Berlin went off the air The rest were heard only sporadically The strident voice of Nazism became only a whimpering whisper And at the very moment Goebrels' propaganda colossus was collapsing the American people were awakening to the tragic fact that the tales of the barbaric Nazi atrocities were turning out to be true The ghastly pictures from the German prisoner camps and from the Nazi concentration camps the frightful scenes which our own trusted radio and newspaper correspondents told of witnessing in these German infernos had finally removed the doubts of the good folk who heretofore could not for thei: hey: tha Germans (were they not just like any other people?) could torture and murder great masses of innocent human beings like wild beasts The Truth Is Confirmed I brought back from the war some of these tales of German atrocities' and had written and spoken of them up and down this land Few believed They had fallen for that kind of 'propaganda about the Germans during the last war they said But not believing as we oft forget does not necessarily make a thing untrue And these past days we have been given the stork truth or rather a confirmation of the truth by such reporters as Ed Murrow who last Sunday described the horrors (500 beaten emaciated corpses piled up like cordwood in one little stable) he saw at the notorious concentration camp at Buchenwald where tons ot thousands of human beings were tor- tured to death by German "human beings" Buchenwald! Will not its frightfulness wake us up to the kind of people we have been up against in this war "It had" reported one American correspondent "its gallows torture rooms dissection rooms modern crematoria laboratories where fiendish experiments were made on living human beings and its sections where people were systematically starved to death" It even had a "parchment room" the parchment being large pieces of human flesh with elaborate tattoo marks People Made to View It And at Buchenwald the most effective kind of re-education of the Germans has started The American military authorities are seeing to it that German civilians from the nearby city of Weimar are conducted through the camp and made to see the visible evidence of the infamous crimes committed by the regime to which they gave such unstinted support Our war correspondents in Germany report that the German people with a unanimity which is sickening feel no regret no sense of guilt for having launched this war and for having laid so much of Europe to waste And several American reporters have noted how callous the Germans seem to be about the horrors to which the slave laborers and the other captives in Germany were submitted They were callous about this but they whined the correspondents said at the awful destruction of their own towns and villages Such people will not become decent humanitarian world citizens over fact which we must keep in mind In the last gasps of the once mighty Nazi propaganda machine last week there was something momentous For 10 years and especially since the war it had spread its poison in every nook and corner of the world German agents and sympathizers in the most distant lands listened at the radio sets to the "line" laid down in Berlin and propagated it wherever they were Never in history had the earth's surface been so polluted Struck Mighty Blows The Gentnan -radio network the most technically efficient in the world could under Goebbels' skill Parents Receive Son's Decoration WEIMAR Germany April 21 publi can Reps Clare Boothe Luce of Connecticut John Kunkel of Pennsylvania and Leonard Hall of New York viewed the horrors of Buchenwale concentration camp Saturday along with 10 members of Britain's Parliament The visits of the two parties of legislators coincided by accident Mrs Luce saw stacks of bodies of Buchenwald's victims and EUREKA: What you do after eating spring onions HOSPITALITY: The art of making a guest feel at home when you wish he were DIPLOMA: The man you call tip when the water pipe springs a leak OPEN MIND: Something that is often vacant MEADOW LARK: A party that's thrown in the country FIGURE: What a girl has to watch if she wants the boys to INNKEEPER: A man who's known by the company he sleeps DANDELION: Something a husband gives his wife when he comes home late from a poker game FISHING TACKLE: A football player on a vacation CRIMINAL: A man who first does people and then does time "The most important thing to remember is that this could happen to us in 20 years "Only a few years ago some were talking about there being good German people After seeing this one wonders whether there is good in any German people" Among the emaciated internees was a 612-year-old boy who had been imprisoned two and a half years "lie was picked up in Paris because he was out after curfew" Mrs Luce said "No one wants to believe these things but it is important that people know they're true" She asked several of the former prisoners what should be done with Germans responsible for the atrocities and they replied: "The same as they did to us" "That's no answer" Mrs Luce told newsmen but she did not amplify MEGARGEL April 21 (Sp1)-- Mr and Mrs Jim Hrncirik have received the Purple Heart awarded to their son Pfc John Jimmie Hrncirik He was wounded while crossing the Rhine March 3 and is recovering from a leg injury in a hospital in Fiance He was a 78th Division infantryman ceives a majority of the electoral votes There is no sound reason why the Secretary of State shall be the successor if the Vice President has become President and then he dies or is disabled It would be better if Congress had the opportunity to select a President for the unexpired term (Opinions expressed are the writer's and not necessarily those of the Star-Telegram) PRISONERS IN LEIPZIG 1 MP BURNED TO DEATH BY NAZIS B1 4 k3- 14 441 e-- 4 i -T Iiii e01 t-1 ita '4 rprr7777r171-'''' r171177 ''1'' i 5 '')t'- i 4 -I: i I 1 i4 1 21- j1 1 )T7: 4 i'' 1 7::: '4---7 X2: -f 7-rof t' I 57'' '7 0 1 :11: N' 1' tt 4-: 7 ie' 4 'if 7 1 'v' 'it''' ri 4 '1 1-' 1t1: I r- ta I 3' 3 4 411 :4 11 0' 41''1 1' 3 j' -'4''''' 1 i'': 'I i IL Ie tit tr-' 1 40 7) A i-- I NA- i-- i 14 'i 1i 4-''' ''144'4: Yl-ii -a 1 04- 1 f' i 4-- )4 j- 1 '-'1' 0 '1' i -'4tx -4: 1 t- i z(i 4 s' I 1 -Ir-it 11 7 i 1 1 1 7 7 ola i-i N-4t- 1 5j-i 1 -i: '1' 0-11 -ii'i- s-c i- I -i: --1 z- ts i I i I Iiii I :1 1 i SERGUANT McILROY Hillsboro Soldier Belgian Bulge Vet while they were eating quickly hung blankets up outside the windows Other SS men ran into two doors threw cans of inflammable acetone over the prisoners and then set the building on fire "It went up like a tinder box I could hear my friends screaming and praying as the flamus seared them and they tried to run through the doors and climb through the wiridows "The SS guards and one Gestapo man were ready They fired into both doors and every window" I walked over to the ruins of this 40 by 150 foot building and saw the charred skeletons more than 25 at each door They had burned into a mingled mass of bones Or skel- head lifted above the other its blind eyepits stared sit under the warm spring sun Two miles away young German mothers were trundling babies peacefully along American patrolled streets BY HAL BOYLE TIIEKLA Germany April 20 (Delayed) O-11) The charred bodies of 220 political prisoners who were sprayed with flaming acetone and burned and shot to death just before American troops captured this Leipzig suburb still were sprawled Friday in postures of agony Some lay in the ruins of the concentration camp barracks Others were caught on the sharp spikes of barbed wire enclosin3 the camp Of 324 Polish Russian Czech Yugoslay French and Italian political prisoners in the camp only about 80 survived A Czech bar ber who managed to short circuit the electrically charged barbed wire enclosure led them to safety This atrocity took place in Plant No 3 of the Erla works which made 3lesserschmitt airplane parts The camp in the middle of the factory buildings was a division of the notorious Buchenwald "murder factory" near Weimar TM (Dela: bodies who acetor death captur were of ago Son concer eTS spikes the cz Of Yugos ical about ber the wire This No 3 made: The factor: of the der fa 1 From here the Germans were marching prisoners by the hundreds to points farther east until last Saturday When guards lealned the S' 9th Armored Division had swung around east of Leipzig they decided to destroy the last 324 left on their hands "All were scheduled to be killed that said the Czech barber Carl Tykal "But for some reason the guards decided to wait until the next day During the night 30 men managed to climb over the fence Most of them hid in holes and corners of the factory "To get them out of hiding the guards went aroung the next day carrying big steaming cans of potato soup and shouting that all who came out would be fed Most of those hiding were so hungry they fell for this trap "There were almost 300 men in the barracks The guards saw tnat soup was served to all and then HILLSBORO April 21 Sgt James Mcilroy son of Mr and Mrs Mc Ilroy of the Vaughan community a veteran of the Belgian Bulge campaign who on Jan 31 was pinned down by enemy fire an entire day and had his feet frozen is now at home He has recovered but his toes are still stiff McIlroy saw 87 days of combat duty as a 99th Division infantryman He holds the Purple Heart Combat Infantryman Badge and Distinguished Badge His unit also was cited by the Belgian TRUMAN GETS NEW WAR LOAN the three survivors of the famed Mt Suribachi flag-raising incident as his guests President Truman gets the first of the new 7th War Loan posters based on Joe Rosenthal's epic Iwo Jima photograph at the White House From left: Pharmacist Mate 2-c John Bradley Appleton Wis Secretary of Treasury Henry Morgenthau (behind him) Truman Pfc Rene A Gagnon Manchester Pfc Ira Hayes Bapchule Ariz (AP Photo) farned a of the 1 at the 4 0.