Poles To Attlee 01104

the Rabbi of Berlin The Document from the papers of Stanlislas Mikolajczyk (Hoover Institution, Stanford, California) Report by the Warsaw Poles to the Executive of the British Labour Party and Deputy Prime Minister Clement Attlee , January 10, 1944, refers to mass killings of Jews and others at Auschwitz. To The Executive of the British Labour Party, c/o Deputy Prime Minister C.R.

Attlee, Dear Comrades, We decided to write to you once more at this juncture, when the plans of the future organisation of the world are being shaped and defined. Your friendship and sympathy have been to us, throughout this war a source of comfort and encouragement to persist in our fight. To you, therefore, we address ourselves and beg you to be willing to be the spokesmen of our aims and desires.

We are deeply disturbed by tendencies showing in political discussions in Britain, which, to our mind, may have fatal consequences for Europe opening a period of anxiety and troubles all over the world. Our anxiety over the future of our nation and of the central and eastern European region increases with the growth, day by day, of the danger menacing our country.

We write our letter to the awe-inspiring cracking of the guns of the German squads carrying out the public mass executions in the streets of our towns. Since October, when this new method of terrorism and exterminations had first been applied, till the 1st of January of this year, 950 hostages, seized in the streets or dragged out of their homes, have been shot in Warsaw — only in groups of 10 to 100, publicly in the squares and streets of the city.

This happens in many other towns and villages. Simultaneously, the killing of prisoners continues as before. There is no doubt, that the Germans will go on killing our youth, our workers, peasants, and educated classes right to the end of the war, cho[o]sing the best people, the most valuable and forceful individuals with the aim of weakening and disabling our nation to the utmost degree.

And, parallel to this mass-murder, round-ups and raids go on night and day and hundreds of our men, women and young people are being arrested. Transports to concentration camps continue in endless procession, and in these camps the Germans have brought to perfection their bestial tortures from which there is no escape, but death. The crematories in the camps burn day and night. In this fight against the Polish people the Germans use every available means, including lethal gas.

In Oswiecim [Auschwitz], Belzec, Majdanek and Treblinka, they have built special gas chambers to destroy prisoners wholesale. The Germans already embarked upon gas warfare in this war! Not yet on the fronts — but hundreds of our fellow-citizens perish in gas chambers daily serving at the same time as test [objects?] for various kinds of gas.

Our losses have mounted to 5-6 millions dead — of whom 2.5 millions are Polish citizens of Jewish faith, who were murdered last year for the simple reason, that they were born Jews. These holocausts, of millions of Polish people, destroyed already the majority of social and political leaders, scientists, scholars, technicians and a multitude of ordinary working men and women, whose only fault was, that they remained Polish.

Add to this over two million workmen and peasants deported to the interior of Germany and over a million driven into Russia, of whom only small numbers succeeded in getting out to the Middle East, while the great majority gradually pass away in the frightful conditions of the Soviet “penal labour camps”. The most active elements the most useful and vigorous were chosen, so that they should not stand in the way of the aims of another age-long aggressor against our country and our freedom.

This is the price we have already paid for our decision to fight tyranny. We know how difficult it is for you to believe that all this has really happened. The idea of a cruel biological extermination of nations is so foreign to you, that your imagination simply does not grasp such terrible pictures, which we face every day and which reminds every one of us that it is only by chance that the life of this or that man will be saved. And the final cost is still to come.

Himmler already decided and [Hans] Frank already sent instructions as to the evacuation of Polish territories. The educated and professional classes and all unable to work are to be destroyed. Those fit to work physically will be deported as slaves in the wake of the retreating German armies. We know how these orders were executed in the Ukraine. We have no illusions, The Germans will execute the orders in Poland with the same meticulous thoroughness.

We do not complain. We want, however, the world to know of our fate, so that the sacrifice of our people shall not be in vain. We do not despair, but get ready to face the new horrors. The world may rest assured, that before we die we shall fight first. But let it be known that we shall die in thousands and tens of thousands in our fight against the Nazi hordes, their tanks and airplanes, their automatic guns and pistols ourselves equipped only with the most primitive weapons. We are disarmed.

We clamour for arms. The degree of our resistance will be measured by the level of our armaments. We can get that assistance from you, from Britain only. As, according to your letter to us, it is impossible to paralyse the murderous activities of the Germans by retaliations from the air, there remains nothing for us, but to hope for salvation through speeding up of military operations and delivery of arms to us.

What our Home Forces, with whom we closely cooperate received, has become a serious factor of defence. But it is inadequate especially in view of the German evacuation plans. Our first request to you is, therefore to multiply the arms’ deliveries for our Home Army. Permit us, however, not to confine ourselves to this only.

In spite of our losses, our political life continues and if only for the sake of a historical record let us state, that the working classes of Poland preserved all their spiritual fortitude and that every gap torn in our ranks by the terrorism of our the invader is quickly filled by new men ready for work and sacrifice. Our organisations to an ever increasing degree embrace all the working people.

The political, military, and special organisations of our Party and of the Trade-Unions work ceaselessly. As representatives of this vigorous and undaunted movement, we have the right and the duty to present to you our political standpoint.

Until now, despite our tragic conditions, we felt certain, that our sacrifice will lead to a victorious end for us as well, to the reconstruction of an independent and strengthened republic, in which the workers and peasants in brotherly union with the non-manual workers will be able to realise the ideals of liberty and social justice. Our hope is now shattered. That hope gave us till now, the strength to face death steadfastly.

Today, however, there is fear in the eyes of our fellow citizens, fear caused by increasingly growing symptoms of a