The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1915-07-31
TRAGEDY Of POLAND;
SECOND FOR UNHAPPY COUNTRY

~
in the stricken regions. Together
they planned for extensive measures
of relief, to be SEN through Germany
with the approval of the British for
eign office. Germany consented, but
the officials here doubted the good
faith of Germans letting large sup
plies of food pass across Germany to
Poland. And so the negotiations
halted, and now another plan is on
foot to get supplies into Poland by
way of Switzerland without passing
through German hads.
One of the scenes Mr.. Gibson pic
tured was a Polish village where he
passed a cemetery toward dusk and
saw a crowd collected. On inquiry
he learned it was the joint funeral
of twelve children who had died that
day; and he learned further hat this
was the normal average in this and
other stricken villages = twelve
children a day dying of starvation.
At one point he noted an old woman
who had crawled sixteen kilometers
to get a hand full of black bread.
These were merely a few instances
out of a great number which led him
to the conclusion that the desolation
in the wake of the armies in Poland
was greater than that in Belgium,
where he had made a similar inspec-
ton.
The Polish student group here is
also receiving frequent mail advices
from their friends in the various
parts of Poland. One of the last
posted Of these student letters
summed up recent advices which got
through as follows:
"Out of $4,000 square kilometers
in old Poland, $4,000 square kilo-
meters have now been occupied by
the AustrO-German armies. The
departments which have suffered
most are Kaliska, Piotrowska, Kie-
lecka, Radowska, Suwolska and
Plocka; also four districts of the
government of ~Lonisynsky, ten dis
tricts of Warsaw, which is a depart
ment half the size of Wales in ad-
ditiOn to the city of Warsaw; four
districts of Lubelokic, and five in
habitants of this region, 100000
have suffered. OF $4,000 villages,
$500, or about 20 per cent, are par
TALLY destroyed, and another 1000
villages are completely leveled to
the ground, not a trace of them re-
naming beyond the heaps of smol-
dering rubbish and ruin"
The peasantry are pictured as
moving about like great tribes of
gypsies over the ~blackened fields,
carrying and pushing their scant be-
longings in small carts. Miss Alma
Tadema gives a graphic picture of
this wholesale d%esolation: Industry
is at a standstill; millions are out of
work; the meadows and arabic lands
are furrowed by deep trenches, rid
died with shell holes; the same
tracts have been swept over by i'm
mense battle waves; nothing remains.
The barns and ricks are burned; the
horses and cattle all stolen or slain;
ruin everywhere. The wOmen and
children have been driven out into
the open; they cover the woods;
the manse, the manor house, the old
castle in the park, all are destroy
ed; there is no one to help, there is
nowhere to fly to; nothing to do
but to hide in ruins, in woods or in
hollows, gnawing roots and bark of
trees, while the children shiver and
starve to DEATH
And this is from one of the best
informed Polish authorities in Eng
land, the energetic young woman
official of the Polish committee. the
bearer of one of England's great
names, and the center into which
pOurs all this mass of information
concerning the colossal tragedy OF
Poland.
There are many other enthusiastic
Polish workers here, notably Nine.
Syanislawa Bevan, the Polish wife
of the prominent English painter.
Robert Bevan, who is chairman OF
the committee looking after Polish
refugees coming to London. Nine.
Bevan, born in Poland, has Sacri-
feed her jewels to aid in caring fol-
her countrymen. One of the rings
she gave for the cause is significant
OF the burning hope underlying the
Polish cause. 1t is an old family
heirloom, bearing date just after
Poland was tori into three parts and
passed around to Austria, Prussia
and Russia. What appears to be a
seal on top of it is in truth a NINA.
ture coffin, emblematic of Poland's
burial. But when a tiny spring is
touched the coffin opens and q
Polish knight in the full regalia oil
old Poland rises with sword aloft
from his tomb in which Poland has
slept since she vas d~ismembered.
The AnglO-Russian entente creates
many political obstacles to getting