"TERRIBLE SIGHT"

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 6, Issue 42, 26 January 1943, Page 3

"TERRIBLE SIGHT"

STARVED POLES EVACUATED FROM RUSSIA "We liave Poles scattered throughout the Middle East,- to add to the hotch-potch of nations here," states Miss Betty Lorimer (Christchurch) hi k letter written last October to j her parents from Basra. j "Some of you may not know what is happening in this part of the world,"' she said. '"When Russia, invaded Poland, about two million Poles were taken to the U.S.S.R. us prisoners, and the women and chikire.ll jus.', went along with the men. Food is pretty short in parts of Russia for non-workers, so these people were, not being proper!)' fed. Now they arc being released under international agreements, and arc being evacuated from lius'sia via Teheran. The British Government rushed militarj' hospitals there to cope with the sickness, elite Hy dysentery and malnutrition, ami, many of the sisters now in the Basra area have had their turn at nursing the Poles. "The able-bodied men ami women have been mobilised, in the Polish army, and arc mostlj* training in Palestine. The rest have been gradually moved out of Persia to India and parts of Africa, where those who care about the survival of the Polish nation are hoping that the children may have enough food to make tbean grow up. Most of them look, at the moment, like tadpoles . . . . a terrible sight to our cj^es."