"The German administration is treading under its feet the long recognized laws and customs governing war, in that it has given the orders to the troops to take into captivity all male civilians and in many places even the women, and to use against them those measures which the Hitlerites have introduced towards prisoners of war. This does not only mean slave labor for the captured peaceful inhabitants but in most cases it also means inescapable starvation or death through sickness, corporal punishments, and organized mass murders.

"The deportation of peaceful inhabitants to the rear, which has been widely practiced by the German-Fascist army, begins to take on a mass character. It is carried out under direct rulings of the German High Command (OKW) and its effects are especially cruel in the immediate rear areas during a retreat of the German army. In a series of documents, which have been found with the staffs of destroyed German units, there is a directive to the order of the High-Command under Nlr. 2974/41 of 6 Dec. 1942 which directs that all grown men are to be deported from occupied populated points into prisoner of war camps. From the order to the 37th Infantry Regiment of the 6th Division of 2 Dec. 1941 under the heading "About the deportation of the Civilian Population" it can be deduced that for the period from the 4 to the 12 Dec the capture and forceful deportation of the total population of 7 villages to the German rear areas was planned, for which a carefully worked out plan was proposed.

Sometimes all the inhabitants were deported, sometimes the men were torn away from their families or mothers were separated from their children. Only the smallest number of these deported people have been able to return to their home village. These returnees report terrible degradations, heaviest forced labor, abundant deaths among inhabitants because of starvation and tortures, and murder by the Fascists of all the weak, wounded, and sick."

Further, there are even today announcements in the Soviet newspapers as well as radio about the treatment of Eastern laborers which might have as an effect a strengthening of the moral power to resist in the Red Army. Further, there is mentioned the text of a letter which arrived in Ordshonikidsegrad from a Russian girl and which was published in a "Proclamation" of the police administration of the North-Western Front of the Red army under the heading of "A Russian Girl in Cologne", attaching in connection with it an effective propaganda viewpoint about the "Fascist Forced Laborers" in Germany.

"Do you know"—, it goes on at the end of the proclamation,—"that every one of us who goes to Germany will meet the same fate as Olga Selesnewa! Do not forget that the German monster will make each and every one of you, who has remained behind, a slave on your own soil or drag you to eternal forced labor in Germany! Dear brothers and sisters ... Go to the partisan detachments! Injure the German occupants at every step. Hit the Hitler thieves everywhere and continuously. The Russian soil shall become their graves!"

The effects of this large scale documentary proven radio-press-and leaflet propaganda, operating even into German administered territories, must be considered as one of the main reasons for this year's stiffening of the Soviet resistance as well as the threatening increase of guerilla bands up to the borders of the General Government.

In the meantime, after a betterment of the condition of the Eastern laborers had been insisted upon, not only by the main office for politics in the Reichs ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, which has been able to find support in the repeated requests by the High Command of the Armed Forces, but also by the gentleman charged with the responsibility for all labor employment as well as the Department of Labor Employment in the German Labor Movement, which has the supervision of the Eastern Laborers—those previously existing legal and police rulings have been mitigated and the conditions in the 8-10,000 camps in the Reich have, on the whole, been improved. Thus those fixed wages, which have been determined by the tables of compensation in a ruling of the Council of Ministers, upon which deductions were made up to 75%, have been replaced by new tariffs. The Eastern Laborers were left free of duty according to it, and the taxes were paid in a form of an Eastern Laborer Tax by the owner of the enterprise (Ruling of Council of Ministers for the Defense of the Reich of 30/6/42). Thus after many months of negotiations, with the cooperation of the Central Economic Bank in Rowno, a salary transfer, in the form of a savings stamp procedure, was regulated. Thus, the ruling of the Reichs Chief of the SS of 20/2/42 prescribing barbed wire has been dropped by a supplementary ruling of 9/4/42 and at the same time, in exceptional cases, groups were permitted to go out under German guards, of late, it has even been permitted under their own supervision. The food supply was adjusted by a special delivery letter of the Reichs Food minister dated 17/4/42, to a degree where the "Soviet Civilian Laborer", as well as the prisoners of war received a uniform ration. This was still not enough compared to the normal amount of food given to those employed in the industry and in the mines, besides it was still much less and worse than that for the Poles, but it was an improvement compared to former conditions. Furthermore the postal communication has been adjusted for those Eastern Laborers who come from the civilian administered as well as those who are from the regions directly to the rear of the army,—at least theoretically—. On account of the burden placed on the censorship office for foreign countries the High Command of the Armed Forces has recently asked again for a reduction of this measure.

In spite of the improvements mentioned as well as others, which in many cases can be traced back to the personal intervention of the Deputy General of Labor Employment, the total situation of the Eastern Laborer (sampling date: 1 October 1942) must still be considered unsatisfactory, namely, not only in respect to the differences in the treatment of industrial workers and farm laborers but in the differences found in the different States and enterprises. On the average there are still about 40% of the lodgings for Eastern laborers which would not meet the requirements even if all the wartime restrictions were considered. Among these are a frightening number of camps whose conditions are such as to destroy the success of the attempt of improving relationship and the corresponding radiating uplift of the morale within the Eastern territories. Not even to mention the fact that the marking OST (East), an identification ordered by the police, is being felt as degrading there remains such a quantity of grievances and problems that it would be impossible to relate them now. Only the following points are to be mentioned:

1. The Enlisting and Employing of persons of German Parentage, as Eastern laborers. Several observations made by the commission from the central office to inspect camps, as well as petitions which have reached them, show that persons of German parentage were enlisted,—against regulations,—as Eastern Laborers. Even if they are not recognized people of German parentage according to the "RKFestigung", they are, however persons of German descent and with German names, as Mr. Middelhauve could establish in a camp near Berlin. It is to be doubted that the branch offices of the sub-office for Germans living in foreign countries had enough qualified help who could separate these persons capable of becoming Germans again.

2. Enlisting and Employing as Eastern Laborers of Tartars from the Crimea. To increase the fighting numbers of the Tartar legions it would be indispensable to return all those Tartars, who have been employed in the Reich as Eastern Laborers, to their homes before the coming of winter; a similar report to the "GBA" is being prepared. Besides climatic reasons, the necessity for this return is to intensify the wine and tobacco growths in the Crimea by experienced help and at the same time, to prevent the invasion of Greek and Bulgarian planters and traders. To prepare this return as well as to deal with other Tartan problems a commissioner, namely a Crimean Tartar, has been installed by the "ZO". In the meantime, difficulties have arisen because of the effect of the furloughing of Tartan Eastern Laborers for participation in the Mohammedan festival during the 4th and 5/10/42 as well as the procurement of the meat and millet supply needed for this occasion. The authority in these and similar matters will have to be voiced, at the time of their return, by those White Ruthanian Tartars who have been selected for resettlement.