TRANSFER OF POLES

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 February 1942, Page 3

TRANSFER OF POLES

TO RUSSIAN*"PROVINCES

WELLINGTON, February 17

| The following caoled advice from I London has been received by the Polish Consul-General (Count vvodzicKi): “General Sikorsky's interview with M. Stalin in Moscow has resulted in M. Stalin promising to transfer more than 1,000.000 previously deported Polish women and children ana aged and disabled military men from every part of European or Asiatic Russia to the south-eastern provinces of Russia on the Afghanistan and Iran irontiers. These people, who until now have lacked essential necessities of lile, will be provided as far as possible with clothing and food. "The collection of these distressed people in this particular part of Russia alongside an Allied country will enable them to receive the assistance through Iran of the Polish Government, whose modest means have already been put at their disposal as well as the help already sent by the Allied nations. 'Large contributions sent by the American authorities and also by Poles residing in both the Americas, have already arrived and have been distributed under the supervision of the Polish Ambassador °Moreover, Mr. William C. Bullitt, special envoy of Mr. Roosevelt to the Middle East, has agreed to General Sikorsky’s request to hand over through Iran a large amount of American supplies stored in the Middle East. The British Government, in addition to the British Red Cross Society’s generous contribution, already dispatched to Russia, has arranged facilities for conveying 500 Polish children from Russia to India for the duration of the war.”