Page:Storm Over Paris.pdf/266

Chapter 33

France had fallen. The steel might of the Nazis spread, swift as the bubonic plague. Some whispered: "peace with honor"-but the heart of France was stricken with shame. Like an outcast widow, who hides her humiliation beneath veils of black, the shutters closed over the windows of Paris. But nature knew no shame: she poured forth blessings golden fruition. The cows bore calves, the swine dropped on the bursting vineyards, and brought the tall grain to their litters, the fowl increased their egg production, the fish in the rivers grew fat on human blood.

"Cooperate!" was the steel-backed order. Cooperate with everybody-even with the damned Jews-as long as their storerooms are stocked with wool that can be knit into sweaters, with furs that can be made into mantles, with leather for shoes, with skirts and clothing and hats and stockings and bags and gloves! Let them drag the stocks out of their hiding places themselves, let them fabricate the raw material with their own hands, and in their own shops, on their own machines-and in exchange give them money, paper money-plenty of it! Work fast, Jew, for annihilation is coming, coming with swift tread from the tested laboratory of the Polish ghettos! The death-camps and murder-factories swallow you up, your fat is processed into soap, but while you live, cooperate with your assassins, turn your last ounce of energy into bloody coins for your killers!