Mercy

Crackling rifle shots and a couple of ropes yanked taut in Europe last week, and a few old debts were paid.

P: Leaning on a cane, hook-nosed Fernand de Brinon, former Vichy representative to German-occupied France, limped to an execution post at the Fort de Montrouge, outside Paris. A volley from the firing squad ended him.

P: At Bratislava a fat, bullet-headed Roman Catholic priest walked to the gallows. On the scaffold, Dr. Josef Tiso, ex-president of the wartime Nazi puppet state of Slovakia, murmured a prayer and clutched a rosary. Seven minutes after the trap was sprung, the rosary fell from his lifeless hand.

P: In Poland a German war criminal saw his last dawn. Convicted of sending 4,000,000 people to death, Rudolf Hoess, former commandant of the Oswiecim (Auschwitz) extermination camp, was hanged on the same gallows where many of his victims had died.

P: A grislier fate awaited three Hungarians. Charged with plotting a rightist coup against the coalition government, they were sentenced to a hanging a la Hongroise. In this procedure, the condemned man stands on a stool before a high post topped by a hook. A thin rope is put about the victim's neck and pulled taut about the hook. Then the stool is kicked from under the victim. His neck is not broken by the drop. As a measure of mercy, the executioner sharply twists the victim's head while a couple of assistants pull his legs down.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.