BLOW TO THE POLES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 165, 10 April 1944, Page 4

BLOW TO THE POLES

Arrest Of Cardinal Hlond

Bv the last mail from England Count K. A. AVodzicki, the Polish Consul-Gener-al in New Zealand, was advised that the Polish Government had been officially informed that Cardinal Hlond, primate ot Poland, who had been resident in Lourdes, France, had been arrested by the Gestapo at Haute Combes, and deported to Paris on February 13 last, since when nothing had been heard of him. Count AVodzieki said that this would be a great blow for the whole of the people of Poland. It not only meant the arrest of the highest Church dignitary of Poland but that religious persecution was still being practised in German-occupied countries in Europe. At the time of the fall of Franco Cardinal Hlond had temporary residence iu Lourdes, but some months ago, for no specific reason, he was transferred to Haute Combes, where he was placed under "house arrest” by the German authorities.

Cardinal Hlond was the author of reports to the Pope on the destruction of religious life in Poland in which im revealed the tragic situation of the Christian Church in that country, and there was little doubt that his arres& was an act of vengeance aimed at weakening the unflinching resistance of ihe Polish people. Born in .1881. Cardinal Hlond is the sou of a Silesian worker. He studied in Rome and was ordained a priest in the Salieian Order iu 1905. From .1922 to 1926 he was Bishop of Silesia, and ir 1926 was appointed Archbishop of Gniez no and Posnanin, and Primate of Poland. A year later he was elected a cardinal, in which capacity he attended several international congresses. He was the author of several pastoral letters on social justice and relative problems.