PARTITION OF POLAND

Greymouth Evening Star, 3 November 1939, Page 12

PARTITION OF POLAND

NEW JEWISH “STATE” The new “State” in Poland, to which Germany is sending Jews, was under discussion by Nazi leaders at the end of last month. Apparently the plan is to create a sort of Jewish ghetto in Polish territory where Jews will be settled densely. In, Tarnow, for example, Jews form 90 per cent, of the population, and the Nazis have been forced to appoint a Jewish mayor to deal with the new situation created by the German conquest. However, Tarnow is in Galicia, and Galicia is a prosperous part of Poland. The Nazis believe' they can exploit the oil wells

there to greater advantage by usins modern methods, and consequently ii was not expected that the new “State’ would be in Galicia. In the course of these revelations it also emerged that the Germans had been prepared for two years past to make use of forced labour, such as the Jews and other Polish prisoners will provide. Under the terms which are now being forced upon the Poles the 400,000 prisoners the Nazis announced they had taken in Poland up to the third week in September will be mainly put to work on German farms, receiving about 00 per cent, of the pay of Germans doing the same work. This is partly due to the fact that the prisoners will not have to pay the compulsory insurance premiums which must be met by German workers, and partly because the prisoners are regarded as less efficient than Germans. The proportion of the Jews in Poland who will come under Nazi rule is still uncertain. The figures issued by the Russians after the partition excluded Jews from the expected population gains of the Soviet Union. These were placed at 3,500,000 White Russians and 8,000,000 Ukrainians. The percentage of Jews in White Russia and the Ukraine -is. high,