POLISH THEATRE: Divide and Rule

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In Moscow the Red Army newsorgan Red Star published the text of leaflets given to Russian soldiers before they were started out for Poland, assuring them that the Generals and officers of the Polish Army had fled and containing appeals from the Polish populace for "liberation." In London, the Daily Telegraph & Morning Post reported that famed Karl Radek, who was the No. 1 Soviet publicist up to 1937 when he got ten years in jail for plotting with Nazis, has actually been "busy in Moscow since last March organizing Polish Bolsheviks for the very situation which has now developed." Reports from Paris said that Radek, who is a Pole by birth, has been placed in charge of Sovietizing the Russian slice of Poland.

"Reconstruction and Germanization." The announced slogan of Nazi Labor Service battalions and Storm Troops in Germany's slice of Poland last week were "Reconstruction and Germanization!" Nearly all important bridges had been destroyed, either by German bombers or retreating Polish troops, and the first big job of the Labor Service was floating pontoons and patching up Polish bridgework which could be repaired. Meanwhile, the arms and eagles of Poland were torn down from municipal buildings, replaced by the swastika, and Polish street names were swiftly changed to German. The principal stores, hotels and business houses were left in the possession of their Polish owners and staffs, but in each a Nazi was installed as boss. Many of these new bosses were former members of the German minority in Poland, and last week the passport to quick promotion everywhere was to show a card proving membership for some years in one of the minority parties—despised underdogs a few days ago, now topdogs.

Poles accused as "snipers" at the German Army were rounded up for even harsher treatment than the tens of thousands of Polish prisoners who were being shipped off constantly to work in Germany, mostly on farms but also in unskilled factory jobs where it would be difficult for them to commit acts of sabotage. They were promised pay at 60% of prevailing German wage scales, and Nazi authorities rushed about trying to get their ragged prisoners—many Polish soldiers had thrown away their uniforms—adequate clothes, shoes and overcoats for the winter rains were beginning, epidemics were feared.

In certain of the captured Polish cities, such as Tarnow, Jews comprise half of the population, and Nazis talked last week of segregating "Ghetto cities," but meanwhile every Jew who could escaped from German Poland last week, many fleeing to Soviet Poland, since to escape to Hungary or Rumania was to leap into anti-Semitic frying pans.

"Still Waiting..." Although the German campaign in Poland was "ended" according to General Brauchitsch who left last week for the Western Front, the agony of Warsaw only increased. As the Vistula flows through Poland's former Capital, Warsaw was sliced by the Military Division theoretically into German and Soviet parts. But the whole city continued to resist while the High Commands carved it up on paper.