The Washington herald., 1915-12-26
AUTHOR OF "QUO VADlS'
AIDS SUFFERING Poles
Heenryk Sienkiewicz Collects Funds in
Switzerland for Benefit Of Polish
War Sufferers.

London. Dec. .S.-while Paderewski, the
Polish pianist. has been travelling through
America giving concerts for the beneht
OF his unhappy countrymen ruined and
made homeless I'm two countries through
the war Poland's other famous son
Henryk Sienkiewicz, the novelist. -hss
been collecting money for the same pur
poses I'm the little Swiss town of Vevey
A writer who Just visited the author OF
Quo Vadis' there gives the following de.
scription Of q conversation he had with
him.
II have appealed and am still appeal.
ing TO all Poles scattered throughout the
world" said Mr.. Sienkiewicz: II am ap.
pealing to all the friends Of Poland and
to all lovers of Justice. I have already
collected a million dollars which have
been distributed by our agents. and the
Polish clergy. with the help OF the au.
thorities.
"A million may seem to be a very
large amount. but in face OF all thit
misery it is merely a drop In the ocean
Even poor Belgium has suffesed less thar
We have. While the Belgians could die
for their own cause one million and a
half Polish soldiers are compelled to ffgh,
one another, to murder their own breth.
ren.
Belgium was ravaSed by war through
three or four weeks. but for almost a
wear and a half Poland has been the
arena in which the most murderous bat
ties of the war have been fought. Within
a territory like that OF England and Scot
land together and SURPRISING In popula-
tion that of Spain. the immense armies
OF Russians and Austro-Germans have
advanced and retreated several times
You have to see the country to form any
idea OF what these military movements
mean. From the frontier of Prussia Z
that of Lithuania the country has been
captured and recaptured village by viii
lage. inch by inch. The greater part of
the towns were set afire and thousands
OF villages were leveIled with the ground.
You can imagine what is left.
Before the war there were in the
three Polish countries q 600 900 Poles. One
dares not ask how many are left now.
how many will be left at the end Of hos
tilities. The movements Of the armies
forced the entire population to fee first
in one direction and then In another.
First the Russians. retreating. burned
everything behind them and took many OF
the people with them. now the Germans
are dragging +G00G workmen away to use
in factories in GERMANY"
Madame Sienkiewicz showed the writer
a letter she had just received from one OF
her friends at Lodz. The latter says:
Il am witnessing the slow agonies of
an entire people who have no longer the
strength TO struggle against their misery.
Together with another lady ] visited. a
street in.the quarter of Baluty. We went
into workingman's house to give him
some news from his son.
You are too late said the oldest
daughter. a girl of IS. Father died from
exhaustion week ago and mother died
from typhus on the day he was buried
I'm the next apartment. too. the parents
had died. leaving behind four children
and a boy of l6 Looking closer We found
that the smallest child had just died
while a sister little older was ever
then in the last throes Of death on the
same mattress.
THE majority Of these unfortunate Il
people are too weak from starvation to
go into the woods nearby In search oi
! wood. so they have to burn their las,
poor sticks of furniture to keep from
freezing to death. All my life | shall
remember a mother whom ! found sur
rounded by five children and who said
to me. clasping her smallest baby to her
breast: 1 am not going to take this one
to the hospital The doctors will tell me
that IL must have nourishing food, and
I have only water for any of us"
Henryk Sienkiewicz told the writer tina,
he had hopes of a future for his un-
happy country yet. He told of the splen.
did work done all over the world and
predicted the time when the children OF
Poland now scattered in many countries
would return to free. Independent Po-
land