ILL-TREATMENT OF POLES

Southland Times, Issue 24152, 14 June 1940, Page 9

ILL-TREATMENT OF POLES

PROFESSORS SENT TO CAMPS I UNIVERSITIES BROKEN UP The methods applied by the Germans in Poland against the universities and their academicians prove that Germany aims at a complete annihilation of Polish intellectual life and scientific institutions. In their violence these methods have hardly been surpassed in modem civilization. No difference is made between the provinces annexed to the Reich and the rest of the occupied territory; everything is being destroyed which might contribute to the culture of the Polish people. The Universities of Cracow, Warsaw, Lublin, and Poznan are enveloped in this ruin. The University of Cracow, established in 1364, is one of the oldest in the world. Coupled with the Cracow Academy of Science and Letters, the university was the most important centre of Polish intellectual life. This was apparently reason enough why it should be singled out by the Nazis in their destructive activity, particularly since the General-Governor, Herr Frank, was installed in the city as head of the Administration. The treatment accorded to its professors is already known. On the pretext that their presence was required at a conference, 170 professors were summoned to the University Hall. The chief of the Gestapo, one Meyer, addressed the professors in the German language. He declared that as they had tried to reopen the university without authority, had continued their work in its scientific institutions, and were arranging for examinations of the undergraduates without German permission, all professors present in the hall were arrested.

WHOLESALE DEPORTATION

The professors were deported to concentration camps in Germany, most of them to the camp of Sachsenhausen, near Oranienburg. The cavalcade was headed by one of the most famous Polish scientists, Professor Ignacy Chrzanowski, the greatest living expert on Polish literature and author of many books. He died in Sachsenhausen recently, after having been cruelly treated for over three months. Among the others detained are men of such distinction as the famous jurist Professor Kutrzeba, a former rector of the university; 76-years-old Professor Kostanecki, an eminent anatomist and a former rector; and the present rector of Cracow University, Professor LehrSplawinski, one of the foremost authorities in Slavonic philology, who was especially maltreated when arrested. Nine of the professors imprisoned in Sachsenhausen have died, but there is every reason to fear that the deathroll will not end with these nine victims of oppression. Having occupied Warsaw, the Germans arrested several of the university professors. Among those imprisoned is the doyen of the faculty of Protestant theology, Pastor Bursche, one of the most distinguished representatives of the Protestant Church in Poland, and Professor Loth, the greatest Polish anatomist. Those who were not imprisoned have been warned by the Gestapo that they may expect at any moment to be sent to labour camps or be deported to concentration camps. Scientific papers of great value have been burned. Professor Lukasiewicz, a foremost authority in philosophy, saw his most valuable papers and the work of many years of scientific study destroyed. The university institutes have been robbed by the new occupants. Scientific installations and instruments have been dismantled, in some cases with the help of German professors brought from Germany for the purpose and then transported to the Reich.

MISSING PROFESSORS

The University of Lublin, like that of Poznan, is an achievement of the restored Poland after the last war. Lublin was established in 1918 as a Catholic University, the only one of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe. It was a main centre for Catholic studies. Both the university building and the building of the library, which contained a valuable collection of Catholic archives, have been destroyed by air bombardment. The German pilots seem to have singled out these Catholic strongholds in air raids over the city. The fate of most of the professors is unknown.

The University of Poznan, established in 1919, was the Polish spiritual centre in the territory bordering on Germany. Before war broke out Poznan University counted nearly 6000 undergraduates. The Polish Government took special pride in furnishing it with modern scientific equipment and

a comprehensive library. During the last three years two new buildings had been added to house the institutes of chemistry and anatomy. Having decided on the outright annexation of the territory the invaders seem to have been pai-ticularly ruthless in destroying this Polish intellectual rallying point, immediately after the entry of German troops into Poznan the Gestapo arrested nearly all those professors who had failed to escape their clutches. Some have been declared hostages, others have been deported toi concentration camps or put into prisons. All the arrested professors have suffered cruel treatment at the hands of the Gestapo. Some were too old or too weak to stand the ordeal. Among those who have died was the famous Polish historian. Professor Bronislaw Dembinski, well known in England since his promotion as Doctor honoris causa by Hie University of Oxford nine years ago. Professor Cwiklinski, well over' 70, a Minister of Education in Vienna in the days of the Austro-Hun-garian Monarchy, has become demented. Those dons who have been released from imprisonment have now been compelled to leave Poznan with the millions of Poles expelled from that territory annexed by the Germans into Central Poland. THE WAR GOES ON Poznan University itself is closed. All the collections and instruments, as well as the library and even the private libraries of the professors, have been confiscated by the Nazi authorities and in part sent to Germany. Many records were destroyed by air bombardment when the evacuation train of the university was bombed near Kutno by German pilots when on its way to Warsaw.

I The war in Poland goes on; it is conducted now against Polish culture and the Polish intellect; and in this campaign against the mind the Nazis show themselves as ruthless as they were when over-running the body of Poland. What happened to one Polish town, Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), in the early days of the invasion is vividly described by an Englishwoman, Miss Lucy Baker-Beall, who has recenHy returned from Bydgoszcz, where she had lived for nearly 40 years as a schoolmistress, first in German and then in Polish schools. Following tb' capture of the town by the Germans J** .re were daily executions of Poles .n the square. The victims were lined up against the wall of the museum and shot. The first to be shot were a group of about 20 Boy Scouts, lads of from 12 to 16 years of age. A priest who tried to adminster the last sacrament was shot as well. Thirty-four of the leading Polish tradespeople were shot in a batch, and there were many others.

DESTROYING A CITY

Since then all Polish doctors, lawyers, teachers and tradespeople have been turned out of their houses and businesses without compensation, and sent away from the town or made to work on the land. Many of them were I rounded up, 400 families at a time, and packed into locked cattle trucks in which they were sent off, without food or heat, in bitter winter to the nonannexed part of Poland. There is not a single Polish shop now left in Bydgoszcz. The Polish Government officials have been turned out of their I jobs and are now starving, having been without salaries or pensions for six months. Everything possible is being done to deprive Bydgoszcz of its Polish character. About a quarter of the town, including the town hall, the museum, |and the Jesuit Church, which dates from the seventeenth century, is being pulled down on the plea of making improvements. All the leading Poles have been either shot or sent away. Poles are now forbidden to speak their own language in Bydgoszcz. Volksdeutsche Germans —that is, Germans who formerly lived outside the borders of the Reich—go about the streets with dog-whips and strike across the face anyone whom they hear talking Polish. These Volksdeutsche are by far the worst of the Germans, and there is now much bad blood between them and the Reichdeutsche. The latter accuse the Volksdeutsche of being responsible for the war by their lying telegrams to Berlin about atrocities which the Poles were supposed to have committed. Immediately after the German occupation a substitute for a police force was I formed from the local Germans under I the name of Selbstschutz—men who | were doing little but robbing and murdering. Thirty of them were shot, and I the force was disbanded. Some of their numbers were, however, enrolled in the Black (S.S.) Police, so that there is little improvement.