POLAND’S FATE

Waikato Independent, Volume XL, Issue 3668, 15 February 1940, Page 7

POLAND’S FATE

CONDITIONS OF PEACE REDUCED TO VASSALAGE * * S The terms of the “peace” that Germany and Russia have imposed upon Poland are gradually emerging. In general outline it is now becoming i dear that Poland, under its fourth partition, will be reduced socially, economically, and politically to vassalage. Russian Poland is being Sovietised. But there is yet much to be explained, for the implication of Nazi official pronouncements, together -with reports independently reaching the outside world, foretell a harsh future for the Polish people and the Jews. Germany, in embracing the western provinces of Poland—Pomorze, Posnan and Upper Silesia —into the Third Reich, has not yet reached a final decision on what Polish area shall ultimately be included in Germany proper. The status of Czestochowa remains questionable, some placing this city in Germany proper, others in the newly established German district to be known as the “Gouverae-menit-General lof Occupied Teirritories.” Also, Germany has absorbed the Suwalki district into East Prussia, a small strip running from the southeastern most point of East Prussia to the southernmost point of Lithuania. Russia has taken all of eastern Poland except for a small strip along the Lithuanian border which includes the city of Vilna, which has been awarded to Lithuania. One Third of Former Size. - Thus, what normally now« is “Poland”—representing the area not officially incorporated in either Germany or .Russia, is less than one third of Poland’s pre-conquest area which was approximately the of New England, New York and Pennsylvania. The exact border of this remnant state —called the “GouvemementGeneral” —is still to be determined. German advices indicate that on the south it will stretch across- nearly the entire border of Slovakia and for a short distance along the Hungarian frontier. From this base, the wedgelike province reaches northward nearly to East Prussia, its northernmost tip apparently being Ostroleka. On the east the “GouvernementGeneral’ ’takes in Lublin* but not Lwow, which is located in the Russian sphere. And on the west the district includes the famous city of Krakow, which is to become the capital of the “Gouvemement-General,” and Warsaw, once Poland’s capital, but now a city which the American Friends Service Committee reports is more than half destroyed, Vast Migration Under Way. In the annexed provinces and in the German rump state migrations of populations on a vast scale’-are now under way. All Poles are being moved out of the western provinces, even from such an all-Polish locality as the new port of Gdynia, which the Germans have renamed Gotenhafen. The Poles are being pushed back into the “Gouvemement-General.” Into the vacated districts are coming the Germans compelled to migrate from the Baltic States and the Germans included in what was Poland. Jews are being sent from Poland, Czechoslovakia, and on a smaller scale from Germany to a special district set aside, of which Lublin is the centre but which encompasses an area extending more than 50 miles to the south-west to Nisko. Two million Jews will be transferred under rigorous conditions to this district, under present plans. The total population of 32,347,300 that made up Poland has been distributed about as follows: — To Germany, 18,000,000; to Russia, 14,000.000; to Lithuania, 500,000. Analysis of Population. A breakdown of the peoples going

to Germany shows 15,500,000 Poles; 11500,000 Jews; and 1,000,000 Germans. Statements by German leaders and the German press seem clearly to indicate that what might be termed a caste system will be imposed in the “Gouvemement-General” with the Poles held a race inferior to the Germans and with reduced political, social and economic status. Arthur Greiser, the District Leader of Posen, has declared that the fate of the Poles will be “hard but just.” Recently the newspaper Warschauer Zeitung, official organ of the military authorities of occupation, declared the Poles are being migrated from

the annexed provinces of western Poland in order that “a ; clear separation may be established between the Germans and Poles.” The paper also states that “it is self-evident that there cannot be any thought of sentimental fraternisation” between the two peoples. Compulsory Labour Service. Emphasis to the cultural difference between the Germans and Poles is given by the announcement of compulsory labour service for all Poles under conditions prescribed by the German Government. Developments in Russian Poland are being subjected to an almost airtight censorship. Few

are permitted to emanate from tie Russian-occupied area. Even Polish officials in the major capitals, who are still the “accredited’’ representatives of the Polish Government-in-exile, have found it difficult to determine the actual extent of the “liquidations I'* 1 '* which are known to be proceeding under the Soviet policy. Their reports indicate, however, that Sovietisations of eastern Poland are growing numerous. Russia is reported to have already set up a Soviet state in its -Polish territory on the basis of a directed landed revolt by the proletariat followed by the rout of the upper class, landowners and military leaders, -who have fled, been killed in battle, or slain.