14 JUNE 1940, Page 5

Just outside my flat an elderly person stood talking, and

an elderly dog sat patiently by her on the pavement. I caught one sentence as I passed, and it touched me strangely. " He's getting old. Of course, he's all I've got really." That was on Tuesday evening. On Wednesday, at almost the same time, I heard in the nine o'clock news the announcement that every dog in Germany not needed for war purposes was to be slaughtered. The Tuesday incident gave me some measure of what the Wednesday statement meant.

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