Stockholm, Oct. 30.
UMEROUS arrests are being made by the Gestapo (German secret police) in Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia) following the demonstrations there on Saturday over Czechoslovakia's Independence Day, according to reports reaching here. The organizers of the demonstrations are said to be still at large but the Gestapo have started a hunt for them in Prague.
Hundreds of hostages, the same repens state, were recently seized by the Nazi authorities in view of the possibility of such demonstrations. These presumably, it is alleged, will be used to compel the surrender of suspects.
Independence Day is said to have been celebrated throughout Czechoslovakia on Saturday.
The police in Prague drew a cordon round Wenceslas Square, but this was broken by demonstrators, who were afterwards, however, dispersed by the police. Despite the activity of the Gestapo, many citizens wore the Czech tional badge, while in smaller towns and villages the inhabitants wore traditional costumes in honour of the lay.
The ofücial German news agency. in a Prague dispatch admitting the disturbances, states: "Fairly large Sroups of youths, seeking to create demonstrations in Wencelas Place, were broken up by Czech police. A number were arrested."
Reports reaching Amsterdam, however, state that the demonstrators, wearing Czech emblems, blocked the main thoroughfare, but remained orderly until a Storm Troops guard, which regularly marches through the capital, appeared. As soon as the guard was seen. hostile shouts are said to have been raised. The Gestapo and a detachment of Storm Troops were summoned to disperse them. These sources assert that what is worrying the Gestapo are not the open signs of revolt, but the simmering hostility implicit in obviously well-organized, orderly demonstrations.—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.