SOVIETS STILL PERSECUTE POLES

No Real Religious Freedom in grastow Soviet Poland Yet Allowed
A graphic survey of the present state ot Poland and its relations . with both Russia and Germany has been given by Mgr. KaczynSki, chaplain to the Polish President, on his arrival in America with Genital Sikot ski.
The oppression, hardships and disabilities endured by the Poles at the hands of the Soviets, said Mgr. Kaczynski, have been too great to permit of any great rejoicing °vet N hat may be regarded as a somewhat improved condition of Poles in Russia since the signing of the Polish-Soviet Pact. A staggering amount of changes must yet be made before Polish Catholics enjoy real religious liberty under the Russians.
ONLY 52 FREE PRIESTS IN U.S.S.R.
At present, only 52 priests enjoy freedom in Soviet Russia, and they are all army chaplains, although they are permitted to minister spiritually to the civilian population of Poland deported into the U.S.S.R. in the course of the occupation of Polish territory in the period September, 1939, to Jane 22, 1941. The number of Polish citizens thus in the U.S.S.R. is about 2,000,000, of whom 300,000 are officers and soldiers.
Not all Polish priests have been freed. According to the list presented by the Polish Embassy in Russia to the Soviet Government, some 150 are in the Solowiecki Islands in the White Sea. They have not yet been released because there have been no communications with the islands during the winter. These priests all have been subjected to hard manual labour.
The Holy See has been most solicitous for the welfare or the Polish population, and since the signing of the Polish-Soviet agreement has been sending aid to the Polish people, who have been suffering greatly from material privations and are harassed by epidemics, particularly of typhus and dysentery.
Mgr. Cienski. who was deported from Lwow, is the head of the army chaplains in Russia, while Father Kucharski, a Jesuit, who was deported from Wilno, has charge of the spiritual ministry to the civilian Polish population. They have received aid from England in the form of 40 field chapels, prayer books, rosaries, medals. together with a large supply of clothes, food and medicine.
However, it must be emphasised that such freedom or public worship and oractice of religion in what is now Russian territory is limited and confined solely to the army and Polish civilian population.
CHURCH IN GERMAN POLAND The sitoation et'f the Church in Getman-occupied Poland is critical, to say the least. Some Catholic priests wrote a letter from Breslau, which I received through the Most Rev. John Erik Muller, Vicar Apostolic of Sweden.
According to these priests, seven Polish dioceses have been liquidated— Poznan, Gniezno, Wloclawek, Plock, Pelplin, Lodz and Katowice. The Bishops of these dioceses were deported and,. 91) per cent, of the clergy large or exiled. Worse, a number of them were executed by the Gestapo. Churches are closed and millions of Catholics are entirely without Mass or the Sacraments.
Several Polish bishops are now in Nazi concentration camps, including Bishop Marius Fulman, of Lublin, now ill custody at Nowy Soncz. and Auxiliary Bishops Leo Wetmanski, of Plock, . imprisoned at Oswiecim: Michael Kozal, of Wloclawek, in the camp at Lond, and Vladisfao Coral, of Lublin. in the concentration camp at Oranienburg, near Berlin. Mgr. Anthony Nowoiejski, Archbishop of Plock, died after mistreatment by the Nazis at Dzaildow in July, 1941.
The letter states that before September, l939, there were over 825 priests ill the Archdioceses of Poznan and Gniczno. Of these 86 were slain by the Gestapo without trial or evidence of guilt, 451 were arrested and sent to concentration camps, others deported to the General Government. Only 34 priests were left in these two dioceses for thc Polish population and 17 for•the German population. In Poznan, which had a population of 300.000, there were 30 churches and 47 chapels. To-day only two are allowed open for the Poles and one for the Germans, and one chapel.