SILESIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 August 1919, Page 5

SILESIA.

GERMAN ATROCITIES. TERRIBLE REVELATIONS. AILD3S APPEALED TO FOR HELP. By Telejraph.—Prf«s Asan.—CopytljM. . Received Aug. 25, 9 p.m. London, Aug. 25. The Morning Post's Cracow correspondent reports that several bands of insurgents are still holding out in Upper Silesia, but wholesale executions, coupled with toe use of artillery, have broken the backbone of the rovolt. Most of the inFTrgents preferred death to surrender. The Germans, thus foiled, arrested old men, women, and boys, collected them it droves and made them march for hours holding their hands above their heads. Batches of prisoners were continually beaten with the butts of rifles, wire cabling, and belting. The floors of their cells were so covered with blood from prisoners' wounds that boots stuck while walking. A priest, after confessing a fifteen-year-old boy, was compelled to hold his hands' while he was shot. The Germans found a peasant with a slight bullet wound in his arm, and regarded this as evidence that he had been fighting. They tied a hand grenade to his throat and removed the piti. Numerous instances are found of barbarouß cruelty, old men being beaten brutally, while others were tied to horses. The Germans shot 150 prisoners at Kottowitz. . A favorite German plan was to string ft victim up by the hands before execution. The Germans stood on the river bank .pot-snooting the fleeing refugees while they were wading breast high. The refugees appealed for Allied assistance. It is explained that the miners struck because the Germans made the conditions intolerable. A widow fell at the correspondent's knees and told how the Germans had shot her husband, despite the fact that he had crossed the frontier and was on Polish territory. Young men have pleaded to the Allies to give the Poles arras to defend themselves. The correspondent listened to the stories of a group of 400 refugees, mostly men, and there was hardly a dry eye amongst them. He is convinced that no assemblage of people could be stirred to such unrestrained emotion if they had not lived through a terrible ordeal. The correspondent's conclusions are that a state of siege was dec'-,red in Upper Silesia towards the Polish workers, with the object of inciting ah outbreak, thus discrediting the Poles as a people and giving an excuse for further repressive measures, and tempt Poland to' undertake unauthorised intervention. He is also convinced that all of the most influential Poles have either been arrested or forced to flee, in order to assist the German policy. The Allies' failure to give immediate effect to the treaty elause relating to Upper Silesia has helped the Germans' plans. Polish circles in London are of opinion that the Germans imprisoned or deported practically the whole of the educated people in order to rob the working classes Of jjWdauce and influence during the plefetteite, believing- the latter eoukt easily be persuaded to vote as Germany dictated, but when the workers remained loyal to Poland the Germans dealt with them. • Similarly, many Poles who Were ufttble to flee, hid in disused workings at the mines, where they were fed by their families until caught. The Daily Telegraph's Paris correspondent states that France fears the Allied mission's moral influence-will prove insufficient, therefore the immediate ocetttotion of Silesia by Allied troops »»« J» «P»cted. there has been an unofficial but a dear German invitation to the Allies to take this course.—Aus.NX .Cable Assn. '.Seeded Aug. % «.« pan. London, Aug. 26. The Morning Post's correspondent urges that an inquiry be held similar ,to the Belgian one regarding German excesses. He is of opinion that until the mines afe removed from German control the output will be negligible. The workers will.return immediately the Allies occupy Upper Silesia.—Aus.-N.Z. Cable Assn.