DE-GERMANISING SILESIA

wiloss FROM PAGE ONE
credit of The Church. Often people are heard to say, " The Nazis were open enemies of Christianity and proclaimed themselves as such; but we cannot understand how a Catholic people like the Poles can do the same or even worse atrocities than the Nazis did."
The fact that the Poles who wield power to-day are mostly Bolsheviks is overlooked by the ordinary people. In any case, there is a very definite atmosphere of hostility towards Catholicism growing in Eastern Germany because of the excesses of the Poles—a Catholic nation.
This hostility might be diminished if the Holy Father. whose voice is eagerly awaited even by the Protestants, would denounce the evils at present widespread in the East.
The situation in Breslau in October considerably worsened. From the beginning of the month there was strong propaganda to induce " voluntary evacuation." As there were only a few hundred volunteers, force was used again from October 8 onwards. People were turned out of whole streets and quarters of the town, and all those unable to show a certificate to the effect that they had to stay in 13reslau for the sake of the town's administration or industry. were driven along the road to the station.
After waiting there for days without any food being brought to them, tieing meanwhile ill-treated and robbed of their last possessions, they were at last put into trucks and taken to Forst on the Ncisse.
Of one train we know that after a journey of eight days it at last arrived completely looted. At preSent the chief victims are old people. those useless for work, women with children, who arc tteing dumped into Germany in an inhumane way.
Since September 1 the Archdiocese of Breslau has been under the jurisdiction of an Apostolic Administrator. He has made it quite plain in his pronouncements that he is backing the Polish Government, that the absorption of Schlesien into Poland is definitely to be accomplished, and that the Archdiocese of Breslau is therefore a Polish diocese.
All communicaticCfs to the clergy— even to the German priests—are issued in Polish, although hardly 5 per cent. of them know any Polish. By a pastoral the Admiqistrator sought to introduce himself to the people. It was in Polish, and no mention whatever was made of the German clergy or German Catholics. Schlesien was referred to as a part of the Polish State.
On October 14 and 15 a great "Pieigrzymbka do grobu St. Jadwiga " (pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Hedwig) was ordered. Although the Canons of Breslau Cathedral and many German Catholics took part, they were all utterly ignored in the Polish address to the Pilgrims made by the Administrator.