POLISH REFUGEES

Greymouth Evening Star, 21 November 1939, Page 7

POLISH REFUGEES

THOUSANDS IN DISTRESS

APPEAL FOR RELIEF FUND

[BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.] RUGBY, November 19. The Polish Ambassador to Britain (Count Raczynski) to-night broadcast an appeal for the Polish Relief Fund. He said: “You know Poland was attacked and invaded by Germany and yet you can hardly realise the degree of destruction wrought by the invaders. . ..... . , - . “Many provincial cities, open and undefended, have almost ceased to exist through bombardment from the air, relentless, methodical, and senseless otherwise than as an instance of a method of frightfulness. The capital city, Warsaw, was laid waste and its inhabitants killed, in thousands. “Those who survived were overcrowded in the remaining houses without glass in their windows, coal in fireplaces, medicine in their hospitals, or milk for their children. The factories which provided them with work are reduced to ashes. And it is not that the fighting is over. “News is still arriving of the eviction from their homes of Poles whose houses and land are to accommodate Germans imported to that end from the Tyrol and the Baltic. countries: Millions of Poles' in b a“pf[rely Polish country in parts comparatively less affected by war are to be torn from their homes, leaving behind all their cherished possessions to go—one fears to ask where —and to face what kind of future ?

“From the eastern border" of Poland come more tales of the execution pf priests and intellectuals, of confiscations and deportations of thousands of innocent people into the land of Soviet Russia.

“Large numbers of < niy compatriots have escaped from Poland. lam receiving daily more and more circumstantiated news of a mass of more than 100,000 refugees—men, women, and children, who are stranded in foreign countries, ' mainly in Hungary, Roumania and Lithuania.

“They are treated with kindness by their hosts, who are not, however, in a position to provide them with, warm clothing or blankets for the fast-ap-proaching Winter. “It is on behalf of these refugees that I am appealing to you in the first instance, as they can be helped with the least delay and the leats difficulty. “Help for stricken Poland itself will probably be mainly directed from neutral countries. The fund for which I appeal is to help all alike by means of grants to approved organisations working for Polish relief.’ 'DEATH SENTENCE. (Received November 21, 12.15 p.m.) LONDON, November 20. A Berlin report states that, charged with murdering two Germans early in the war in Poland, a Pole was sentenced to death at Posen.

Seven other Poles were sentenced ;o terms of imprisonment ranging :rom six months to four years.