Page:The Destruction of Poland - Toynbee - 1916.djvu/7



" now writing to you for the special purpose of letting you know what I have learned from the witnesses, for since it has a certain importance, I should like you to make suitable use of it.

"I met to-day certain persons who had come straight from Warsaw and Lodz. I cannot mention their status or names, and shall merely observe that in my opinion their story represents the truth, with no more serious qualification than a certain partiality of view.

"According to these persons, the Germans are intentionally bringing about a famine in the country, in order to compel the male population to emigrate to Germany. They have closed the factories at Lodz, and they are interfering with the charities at Warsaw. There is no flour nor sugar to be had, not even in the Committee Stores on the production of tickets. A pound of meat costs 1 rouble, a pound of bacon 1 rouble 80 kopecks. People are feeding on bread made of washed potato-peelings and acorns. Spotted gastric typhus is prevailing alarmingly. People are simply dropping down in the streets from starvation, while the Committees are helpless, and continually harassed