LU Lt AA

m ae 45% ete as ;

: Here the representative investigating commission sent to Korea by

the W omen’s International Democratic Federation is shown inspecting
the graves of atrocity victims. Lilly Waechter was a member of the.

commission, which was headed by Mrs. Nora Rodd of Canada.

LILLY WAECHTER:

Just ‘a housewife - but
her words stir Germany

YOU WOULD scarcely notice
her if you saw her standing be-
side you at the grocery store or
super-market — just a dumpy,
cheerful, middle-aged woman-’in
a raincoat and a nondescript
sort of hat.

But in October, 1951, this or-
dinary West German housewife
was sentenced to eight months
imprisonment and fined 15,000
West Marks—over $3,000.

What was her crime? Forgery,
perhaps, or cruelty to children?
Not a,bit of it. She was sen-
tenced for telling the truth, and
even the American Military
Court which imposed this mon-
strous sentence did not dispute
that she had told the truth.

Here is what happened. In
May, 1951, the Korean Demo-
cratic Women’s League invited
21 women from 17 different
countries to visit their country
to see the terrible results of
the war there.

The delegates came from all
sorts of different parties and
professions, and one of them
was Frau Lilly Waechter, house-
wife, aged 51, a member of the
Social Democratic party of Ger-
many all her adult life.

She, and the other members
of the delegation. saw the bomb-
ed and burned villages, the mass
graves, the mutilated children,
and all the misery and destruc-
tion of war.

When she returned to West
Germany Lilly Waechter, filled
with rage and compassion and
a sense of the burning urgency
of making sure that the same
fate did not overcome her own
homeland, began to address
meetings.

In simple words she told of
her journey, and what she had
seen and heard of.the horrible
things, done by the foreign

._troops of intervention fighting

in Korea, .

Suddenly she was arrested,
and charged, under Law No. 14,
passed by the Western Allied
High Commission in 1949, with:

“Acts showing hostility and
lack of respect to the allied
forces by making statements
about atrocities, brutalities and
tortures ‘inflicted by American
soldiers in North Korea on help-
less women and children.”

The witnesses who appeared
to testify against her were an
interesting collection — one
American Counter “Intelligence
Corps official, two German de-
tectives, and two German em-
ployees of the American occu-
pation forces.

Summing up, the American
judge said, ““The question of the
truth or ‘falsity of the state-
ments made by the accused are
not under discussion’; he then
proceeded to sentence her to
eight months in jail and 15,000
marks fine.

The sentence raised a storm
of protest, not only in Germany
but in other parts in the world.
and. in January, 1952, her, ap-
peal against the sentence was
heard by the American High
Court in Frankfurt. After hear-
ing defense arguments by Brit-
ish King’s Counsel D. N. Pritt,
famous international lawyer, the
court adjourned, stating that its
findings would be announced
later. At the time of writing
no announcement had _ been
made.

‘ x x x

MEANWHILE Lilly Waechter
continues to fight for - peace,
and against the new Nazi army.
She Knows only too well-what
Nazism means. Her brother was
kicked to death by a SS man
in Buchenwald concentration
camp in 1939, her mother was
gassed in Auschwitz, her father
starved to death in Theresien-
stadt camp. Se

Latest example of her: deter-
mination and fighting spirit
came on February 24 when she
led 500 women in a sitdown
strike in the little town of
Loeffingen in the French Zone
as police tried to shut down an
international women’s. confer-
ence held there,

Heavily armed West German
police and French military police
surrounded the hall where the
conference, attended by women
from France and Switzerland as
weli as Germany, was being
held, and ordered it closed. The
500 delegates, led by Frau
Waechter, kept their seats and
refused to budge until they had
completed the whole business of
the conference, which was call-
ed to foster good neighborly re-
lations between countries,

rT) de ee ee ee

WOMEN'S

news and views

PRU RUBBER EERE REE RRR EE EE) BELPER ERR URE BEEN ERE RR EERIE

FILE AT OLYMPIA

Soldiers’ mothers seeking

peace initiative on ballot

THREE BELLINGHAM] wo-
men have filed in the ‘'Washing-
ton state capital at Olympia an
initiative proposal calilng on the
U.S. Congress to declare it is the
policy of the United States to
live in peaceful co-existence with
all other nations, All three
women have sons in military
service two of whom are now
fighting in Korea.

The first such attempt on the
Pacifie Coast, the proposal will
be known as Initiative No. 183.
When the ballot title is issued
official initiative petitions can
be printed for the 50,000 sig-
natures of registered voters re-
quired to place it on the ballot
at the November 4 election.
Deadline for signatures is July

$3

The measure also; calls on the
U.S. government to implement
the Charter of the United Na-
tions by ‘inviting the respon-
sible heads of the governments
of the leading nations of the

world to a conference to nego-

tiate a settlement of their ex-
isting differences and to reach
such agreement as will end the
threat of war for this genera-
tion and for generations to
come.”’ aa

Those who filed the initiative
are Mrs. - Patricia Cary, Mrs:

Mona Thomas, and Mrs. Ruby
Davis. Mrs. Cary’s son, a Ma-
rine, has been wounded in Ko-
rea. Mrs. Davis’ son is also in
Korea, while Mrs. Thomas’ son
is in the U.S. Army in Alaska.
* a *
EXPLAINING why they made
use of the initiative the women
said ‘‘we have sought to make
use of the democratic means at
our disposal and, under our
state constitution, at the dis-
posal of all citizens. to take an
atcion for peace that has mean-
ing, that can bring results and
that will help, we-believe, to
bring our boys and the boys of
all mothers home and keep them
there to permit them to grow to

manhood. in their own com-
munities, in their own’ homes, in
peace.”

Under Washington state con-
stitution the people through an
initiative may, like the legis-
lature, either enact laws or
memoralize Congress.

Although the initiative has
been used most often to legis-
late, there is precedent for a
people’s memorial, In 1948 the
World Federalists filed such an
initiative. It was given a ballot
title but failed to obtain suf-

ficient signatures: to go on the

ballot—TERRY PETTUS.

CANADIAN WORKERS’ FAMILIES’
LIVING COSTS *.-,

(ee Bases

MNS BG

for @ $1.81

1946 6 31.63 °

‘

I WAS READING Alice Through the Looking Glass to Katy
and John at bedtime the other night, and came to the part where

the Red Queen and Alice start to run.

The Queen urges Alice to

go faster and faster till poor Alice feels they are nearly flying.
Finally, exhausted. they stop, only to find they are still in the same

place they started from.

The Queen explains to Alice, ‘“Now, here,

you see, it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same

place.” ;

I have a hunch that Finance Minister Abbott must have had
this little episode in mind when he dreamed up the new budget for
Canadians — no matter how hard you work, how much you try

and save, you find yourself in exactly the same spot.

And it’s the

little fellow who will have to run the hardest in the coming year
what with more wage cuts to pay for his old age pension,in the

sweet by and by.

Apart from the fact that a cut in pay for the average family
will ruin what is left of their budget, the fact is, that of 94,089
workers at the age of eighteen only 38,569 or 41 percent will be
alive at 70 to collect, and of those, 2391 or six percent would collect

for only one year.

On top of that none of the money collected for
old age pension purposes is repayable-to one’s heirs.

ith continu-

ing inflation the purchasing power of such pensions decreases, so
many will never get full value of these forced savings. °

Seems as though we're insured against almost everything —
unemployment, sickness, old age — now all they need to do is insure
us against the mortgage company and the grocer, that is, if one is

able to collect of course.

Government schemes for insurance always

end up with an applicant being put through the third degree as

though he were trying.to get something he hadn’t paid for himself,
As the Red Queen said to Alice. ‘“That’s the effects of living

backwards, it always makes one a little giddy at first—”

me

*

I MENTIONED IN my last column that young John had swal-

lowed a nrarble.

We know now how long it takes for such an object

to travel through a little boy’s system. For one week we waited
patiently for it to make its appearance and just when we had given
up hope, he came running into the kitchen crying ‘I’ve got it!”
Such excitement there was and John was exactly like a chicken that

had laid an egg, giggling and dancing round like mad.

Poor little

* character thought he was stuck with a marble in him for the rest

,of his days, I guess.—B.G.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — APRIL 18, 1952 — PAGE 10:

Real living costs

This chart is reproduced from
the book “@fow High Are Living
Costs?” published jointly by the
Mine-Mill and United Plectrical
Workers unions, The exhaustive
survey put the real index finger
last September at 256.2 as com-

pared with the government's of-
ficial index of 189.8. :

ACT DISCRIMINATES

Layoffs hit
women hard:

HOW ARE
hitting Canadian women work-
ers and housewives?

current

Singled out for discrimina-
tion when employed, women are
especially hard hit when the lay-
off axe drops.

Discrimination exists within
the Unemployment Insurance
Act itself as regards receiving of
benefits’ for -women workers.
Cases of women workers show
that a woman may be working
steadily for seven or eight years,
contributing her unemployment
insurance all the time,

Then the woman stops work
for a year while she has a child.
At the end of the year. perhaps,
when she is ready to work again,
and needs the extra wages more
than ever ,with an extra child
to support, she finds that since
she ‘‘voluntarily’” left her job.
she is unable to claim insurance.
Her earlier years of steady con-
tribution to the fund count for
nothing. oy

é
This is straight discrimination
against women within the act,
and should be changed.

Some women have found that

their own unions have been able
to get them immediate action
from the Unemployment Insur-:
ance Commission,

One worker let out of a Tor-
onto plant organized into the
United Electrical Workers (UE)
had refused to accept a job as:
a cook because she had a small
son and would have had to live
away from home. >

She was arbitrarily cut off

from het benefits, but through —

pressure of the UE was rein-
stated. The UE has successfully
fought through several cases on
behalf of its union members in
cases where girls had refused
to accept jobs at considerably
lower wages and had been cut
off from unemployment inSsur-
ance.— MARION FRANK.

layoffs

,