POLES' PLIGHT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23486, 25 October 1939, Page 10

POLES' PLIGHT

RULE OF SOVIET LIVING STANDARD GENERAL LOWERING CONSCRIPTING LABOUR By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright (Received October 21, 5.5 p.m.) NEW YORK, Oct. 23 Rapid Sovietisation and a general lowering of living standards as tho result of the mass exportation of all sorts of goods to Russia are main features of life in Poland under the Soviet; according to a Wilno professor who has arrived in Paris, says the correspondent of tho New York Times in the French capital. Tlic professor states that tho Russian shock troops and militia, well equipped and motorised, make an impressive contrast with the bulk of the Soviet Army, which has' made little progress 6i nee the Russo-Polish war. The soldiers behave correctly and continue to assure tho population that they came in friendship. There is no looting, no mass executions, no persecution of Catholic priests and ministers. Churches are intact, but religious teaching in schools has been suspended. Skilled labour technicians have been conscripted and specialists have been sent to Russia. The situation is worse in Ukrainia, where there have been many peasant raids on landowners and attacks on Polish officials. The British United Press correspondent at Moscow says that 10,000 Polish unemployed from the region of Lwow have begun a compulsory trek to the Don Basin area of the Soviet Ukraine, where they will be forced to work in coal pits. Their labour is needed because the Soviet's industry is consistently behind schedule. The Moscow correspondent of the Copenhagen newspaper Politiken reports that an additional 54,000 from a total of 90,000 Poles unemployed in areas occupied by the Russians will be transferred to Russia's central industrial area.

OPPRESSION IN POLAND PROTEST BY VATICAN DOCUMENTED EVIDENCE , LONDON. Oct. 23 The Vatican, through its Nuncio in Berlin, ' has protested to Germany against oppression of the Church in German-occupied Poland, says .the Rome correspondent of the Times. A report accompanying the protest 6ays that up to October 12 117 religious houses and 211 churches had been closed, seven bishops had been pastorallv restricted, and 193 members of Orders arrested. There were 50 incidents in. which dozens of priests and their congregations were ill-treated and injured. . The Vatican may publish documented evidence if the protest does not succeed. The Germans at Bromberg m one day executed nine persons and sentenced one to death. There are .wholesale prosecutions oq charges of helping Poland, says the Riga correspondent of the Times.

WEALTH TO BE SEIZED —,j ■ J REPATRIATED GERMANS r AIM OF ESTONIAN PACT LONDON*. Oct. 23 The economic and financial clauses of the agreement concluded on October 6 for the repatriation of Germans in Estonia, show that Germany's pglicy has essentially a financial object, says the Financial News. Instead of using minorities as a prftext for aggression against the countries of their residence, the Nazi Government is now seeking to seize their wealth for the purpose of accumulating a huge supply of foreign exchange and assets for the Reich's war requirements, at the same time pooling the wealth of the minorities under official' German control, calculated to increase German influence in the countries concernedThe importance of the Estonian agreement lies in the possibility that it may serve as a model for German agreements with other countries. The t&tal assets of Germans in the Baltic States, Denmark, Italy, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Hungary are estimated at about £1,000,000,000. One hundred thousand Germans in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are to be repatriated, according to the Baltic press. This information was given out by the Rome wireless. It is officially stated that the levy on Jewish fortunes will be increased 5 per cent, as from November 15, to 25 per cent.