NAZIS INDICTED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 April 1940, Page 5

NAZIS INDICTED

ALLIES APPEAL TO WORLD CONSCIENCE DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF POLISH NATION. DENUNCIATION OF CRIMES & ATROCITIES. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, April 17. A protest to the conscience of the world against Hie systematic terrorism practised by llie Nazis is made in a joint declaration issued in London and Paris by the Governments of Britain, Prance, and Poland.

“The Governments have been profoundly shocked at reports of crimes against persons and property committed by the German authorities and the forces in occupation in Poland,” it is stated. “The reports leave no doubt that the German Government, which opened the war last September by brutal attacks upon the civil population of Poland in defiance of the accepted principles of international law, is now bent on destroying not only lives and property but also the cultural and religious existence of the defenceless Polish population at present under its control.

“Further, in violation of the Fourth International Convention of The Hague in 1907, Germany has gone so far as to incorporate in the Reich the territories of the Polish Republic, though war between Germany and the three Allied Powers is still continuing. Germany’s policy is deliberately aimed at the destruction of the Polish nation.

“In addition to the persecution of the Poles, there is the atrocious treatment of Jews. This conduct of the German authorities and forces in occupation is a flagrant violation of the laws of war, and in particular of The Hague Convention concerning laws and customs ■of war on land, and the British, French and Polish Governments desire to make a formal public protest to the conscience of the world against the action of Germany for these crimes and to state their determination to right the wrongs thus inflicted on the Polish people."