HEARTRENDING SCENES

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 251, 27 October 1939, Page 3

HEARTRENDING SCENES

WAR DEVASTATION IN POLAND THOUSANDS HEAD IN WARSAW ‘ VICTIMS' STILL LIE IN CITY DEBRIS r . PERSECU'!ION OF JEWS BY GERMANS LONDON, Oct. 25. Details, of the fate of Poland are now tiltoring out. Two American Quakers, Messrs. William MacDonald and Homer ALorris, who art* doing relief work, stated that 50,000 persons were killed in Warsaw and many times m'pre were wounded. They said.that the devastation was heartrending. Thirty-live per cent, of the buildings were reduced to heaps of rubble and another 2-5 per cent, badly damaged. The worst havoc was caused in tile crowded tenements of the old city and the Jewish quarters. Thousands of bodies were still buried in the debris. The survivors have neither homes, money nor work. The 'Nazi relief organisation is distributineg 250,000 hot meals daily. Jews, however, get noth-

Thousnnds of Polish soldiers straggle the roads, hungry and desperate. •Gangs of prisoners and Jews are •forced to clean up the streets of Warsaw'. Typhoid is spreading. The city water supply cannot be used. A message from Berlin states that the Nazi decree appointing Dr. Frank as Governor-General of German Poland, nominates Dr. Sevas Jnquart, as deputy. The occupied territory bears the cost of administration. Power of Decrees The existing Polish Jaw remains in el feet, but such provisions as are incompatible with the new ad'i'ninistration ale abrogated. The Governor-Gen-eral. or Alurslial Goering, as head of the four-year plan, may promulgate decrees. The Governor-General prepares the Budget for submission to tbc Reich Minister of Finance, while the Reich Al mister of the Interior remains the central authority in the occupied territories.

A Budapest message states that the Russians are changing the whole structure of life in East- Poland. Small shops and factories are vested in workers’ committtees. The land reforms bring each peasant 12 acres, a pie; and a cow. Russian is prescribed as the main language in the cities. The teaching of religious knowledge is banned in tbc* schools.