Compact flat manifolds with non-vanishing Stiefel-Whitney classes (Q1304837)

\textit{A. T. Vasquez} [J. Differ. Geom. 4, 367-382 (1970; Zbl 0209.25402)] proved that for each finite group \(\Phi\) there is a positive integer \(N(\Phi)\) such that: if \(M\) is a compact flat manifold with holonomy group \(\Phi\) and \(\dim M>N(\Phi)\), then \(M\) is a flat toral extension of another flat manifold. Moreover, \(N((\mathbb{Z}_2)^n)\geq n\) or \(\geq n-1\) according to \(n\) being even or odd. The authors construct a class of compact flat Riemannian manifolds \(M\) of dimension \(2n+1\), the holonomy group of which being \((\mathbb{Z}_2)^{n+1}\), the first Betti number is \(0\), the Stiefel-Whitney classes \(w_{2j}(M)\) are non-zero for \(0\leq 2j\leq n\) and such that these manifolds are (non-trivial) flat toral extensions of some compact flat manifolds. As a corollary they obtain a much sharper inequality than Vasquez's one, namely \(N((\mathbb{Z}_2)^n)\geq 2n-1\).