ALL YE THAT PASS BY
By MRS. EDGAR DUGDALE
N March, 1942, Himrnler visited Poland, and decreed that by I the end of this year 50 per cent, of the Jewish population should be "exterminated "—in plain English, put to death—and the pace seems to have been hastened since. Now the German programme demands the disappearance of all Jews, men, women and children, natives of occupied Poland or deportees from Western or Central Europe. Mass-murders on a scale unheard-of since the dawn of zivilisation began immediately after the order was issued. At first the details of these were hardly believed, even in quarters capable of judging the reliability of the news that percolated from behind the dreadful barriers of the "sealed ghettos" all over the country. But the accounts were confirmed again and again, and it became evident to those who received them that the German genius for organisation was being applied methodically to the slaughter of Jews. Nevertheless, it was not until the Gestapo Chief reviewed the results in person this summer that Nazi efficiency reached its peak. The exact date of highest achievement, in the Warsaw ghetto, the biggest of all, was July 24th, 5942, when ten thousand Jews were assembled for so-called deportation. The curve then declined for some time to seven thousand a day. By September 1st some 250,000 people had disappeared. For that month 120,000 Jewish ration-cards were distributed in the Warsaw ghetto (entitling the possessor to a pound of bread per week and very little else). For October only 40,000 such cards were deemed necessary. Now the Warsaw "deporta- tions" sink as low as three thousand persons in a day. Before I go on to give an idea of what happens to them, the origins of these appalling reports must be named. There is a spontaneous reaction against " atrocity-stories " and a desire to believe them exaggerated, which is rooted as much in the healthier forms of incredulity as in the instinct to spare oneself pain. But ray facts and figures are quoted primarily from documents issued by the Polish Ministry of Information in London dated December 1st.
If support were needed it could be found in a speech delivered recently in New York by Dr. Stephen Wise, the well-known Jewish leader, based on information given him by the State Department in Washington. No room seems to be left for doubting the reports, tallying as they do with things known to responsible Jewish bodies in the Allied countries. The facts do indeed surpass imagination. Here is one sample from the Polish Government Report. It describes what happens after the daily quota of victims has been assembled at the clearing-stations. They are carried off to death with the "maximum of suffering." A hundred people of both sexes and all ages are packed into trucks that would hold forty and the floors covered with unslaked lime. To enhance the effect of this, the deportees may be ordered to take off their boots. The trucks are sealed before they are started on their journey to the camps of execution at Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka, places east of Warsaw. There the Polish peasantry can hardly endure the continual stench of putrefying flesh, for when the trucks are opened they reveal a mass of the dead and dying, standing upright for lack of room to fall down. Those who still breathe are shot, electrocuted or gassed. The Germans do their butchery assisted by Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Latvian Fascists, but they do not, attempt to use the Polish police even for rounding-up the victims.
These things have been happening all through this November of cheerful memory. They are happening now. Scepticism cannot much longer serve as excuse for inaction, as the burden of providing proof shifts from those who believe that such crimes are being committed to those who refuse credence. So the question arises of what to do, or rather of whether there is anything that can be done while the war lasts. Certain it seems that Polish Jewry will be beyond help if the murder-campaign cannot be stopped before the war ends. But the spectre of defeat may already be lying in wait for the German people. Now is the time to enlist its help, for the argument of fear is one which Germans understand more than most.
The United Nations have sworn to exact full retribution for war crimes. Let them now repeat the pledge with specific reference to the Jews in occupied countries, and so remove any possible idea that atrocities against Jews will be punished less severely than those against peoples who are not in a minority everywhere. The Polish Government have given a lead in their efforts to secure publicity for facts, and this honour is rightly theirs, for the Jews in German- occupied Poland are their citizens or deportees within their borders. But it would be a shameful thing if the British Government, Parlia- ment and nation were to remain supine or mere critics of what others try to do on behalf of tortured people. The German system is not in full operation in every country under German influence. The jaws of the trap are not closed everywhere—at any rate not yet. We know now what will happen if, or when, they shut, and that knowledge lays a heavy responsibility on the Governments and nations who have it in their power to provide refuge. The Jewish communities in the free countries are willing and able to carry the financial burden of the old, the sick and the children. Palestine has an acute labour-shortage due to its contribution to the war-effort. But Palestine is not the only place within the British Empire where safety awaits those who succeed in escaping. Men who do not open doors to those who are hunted by murderers participate in the crime.
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