INVASION OF POLAND

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 285, 1 September 1942, Page 3

INVASION OF POLAND

Third Anniversary Today

UNDAUNTED NATION

“At no time in her long history of 1000 years has Poland suffered such a roll of death, suffering and destruction as during the last three years,” said the Consul-General for Poland, Count Wodzicki yesterday, commenting on the third anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, which occurs today. ‘'But never has she proved herself so strong morally and physically, so united behind her soldiers and her leader, the Prime Minister. General Sikorski.

“The Polish campaign of 1939 was fought without any help whatever—it turned Warsaw into ruins and Poland into a graveyard; it enabled' Britain, though, to take advantage of seven months respite. “Confronted with disaster unprecedented, with her Church, education, and social welfare in ruins, with hundreds of thousands of her subjects driven from their farms and workshops, with still as many facing the firing squads and concentration camps, and one and a half million workers sent to Germany, Poland today stands united as on the eve of this struggle No party, no single man, gave thought to a possible political compromise with the Hun. “For obvious reasons, one caiinot give any substantial details of the well-organized, active resistance of the Poles at home. It can be disclosed, however, that 150 different . secret papers, mostly pocket-size, are published, some with an issue of 12,000 copies, notwithstanding the fact that editors, printers and readers face death penalty. It so happened that in Warsaw, ou July 4, 1941, one editor, Mr. M. Kruk, and 82 other people were beheaded. Present Army.

“In spite of having paid heavily already with the lives of her soldiers subsequently in the campaigns of Narvik, the Maginot Line and Tobruk, it is interesting to note, as revealed by General Sikorski, that Poland’s Army, at present on three continents, ranks fifth in strength of the Allied Nations, forming also the bulk of General Sir Maitland-Wilson’s Tenth Army in the Middle East. According to a recent report, a large unit is undergoing training in South Africa, and numbers of Polish officers are also instructing native troops in West Africa. “General Sikorski also announced that despite heavy convoy work and many naval engagements, the Polish Navy and Mercantile Marine is maintained at its original strength, by reason of the United States Lend and Polish eagles of the air forcehave considerably increased since the Battle of Britain in 1940, when they numbered 10,000, and formed more than 10 per cent of the recent mass night bombing raiders over Germany. “The Polish-Czechoslovakian Agreement of November 11, 1940, and the Polish-Russian Agreement, of July 30, 19417 confirmed after General Sikorski’s visit to Moscow in December, 1941, will no doubt be of paramount importance in the post-war policy of the United Nations. The establishment of a Polish Medical School and a Faculty of Law in Edinburgh, and recently, a'Polish Institute of Science and Learning, in New York, is the foundation of the intellectual life of the Poland of tomorrow. “The Polish people,’? concluded Count Wodzicki, “on the eve of the fourth year of war, are standing unflinchingly at the side of their Allies, fully confident of the eventual victory, which will ensure a just retribution upon the Germans, and a rehabilitation for them.” '