POLES CONSCRIPTED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 193, 16 August 1941, Page 7

POLES CONSCRIPTED

WORK FOR GERMANS LONDON, Aug. 15. According to recent information received by the Polish Government the German authorities in occupied Poland, as well as in the part unlawfully incorporated into the Reich. have imposed on Polish citizens conscription for auxiliary military service. Lists of those conscripted have been prepared by the so-called Arbeitsamc—Ministry of Labour— and conscription notices are sent personally, without any official publication. Refusal to obey involves a heavy penalty. Those conscripted are described as volunteers and in many instances protests against such a description have resulted in the disappearance of those protesting.

The actual aims of this conscription are not known, states the Polish telegraph agency, and in some cases so-called volunteers have been informed, unofficially, that they will have to serve in the auxiliary police or ambulance corps at the front.

The Polish Government has decided to draw the attention of the Governments of Allied and neutral countries to this flagrant violation of the intemationaiiy-recosmiserl provision- of the Fourth Hague Internalional Convention of 1907.