Holland Celebrates a Bitter Anniversary

By a C.H. Reporter While Dutch Catholics in London went to Mass in Farm Street Church last Saturday—to mark
the second anniversary of the German invasion of their country — their thoughts must have gone out to their fellow-Catholics at home and to the heroic way in which they have fought the invasion of their religion by the New Ideology of Hitler.
A Dutch journalist, who was a member of one of the biggest national newspapers in Holland, reviewed for me the events that have passed in Holland during these two tragic years.
What he told me briefly was this: The lead against Nazi domination has been directed by the bishops, who have refused to be intimidated by threat or wheedled into asquiescence by propaganda. And a very subtle and insidious propaganda has been used.
The relatively few Catholic members of the Dutch Nazi Party have had membership more or less forced upon them. Factory workers, in particular, find it impossible to get work unless they join the party. The alternative is starvation for themselves and their families.
The Bishops have expressly forbidden Catholics to be members of any organisation that is controlled by a Nazi. Many of the Church collections go towards helping those who have lost their jobs through this edict.
PICTURES OF HITLER The Nazis ordered all the schools to put up the pictures of Hitler Youth that they distributed to them. But the Bishops forbade the schools to put them up and the Nazis have not dared so far to pursue the matter. They have contented themselves with thundering against the Bishops in the press and referring to " Catholic -sabotage of the German New Ideas."
Of the Catholic press little is left. Ted was suppressed for a time, and then re-appeared completely nazified. The great Catholic daily, Maasbode, liquidated itself voluntarily rather than appear under Nazi control. Other Catholic papers appear, but all that remain of their former selves is their names. Not even the Bishops' pastorals are allowed to appear in them.
Catholic journalists arc in sad plight. They have no jobs and arc depending cm the charity of their friends for means of existence.
NO NEWSPAPERS: NO. RADIO Dr. Hoeben, one of the most brilliant of them all, has died in prison after a year of acute mental suffering. Father von Lierop, another distinguished Catholic journalist, is still in a concentration camp. Fears are entertained forFather Henry sic Greeve, whose name was a household word in Holland in journalism and on the radio.
Catholic radio completely disappeared leaving a terrible gap in Catholic life.
One of the biggest blows at Catholic life to Holland has been the taking over into the Stale organisation of the Catholic Farmers' Union. with its funds and equipment. The students of the Catholic Agricultural Colleges went air strike in a body as a protest.
As in other countries under Nazi oppression, Catholic and Protestant churches have stood side by side in their resistance and this in spite of the old Nazi game of playing off one against the other—a technique they adopt whenever they want to split or undermine opposition to themselves. The game failed completely for old frictions have been forgotten in face of the common oppression.