Warsaw Swamped With Refugees
By H.W. Bodkinson of The London Standard.
W ARSAW, Oct. 15.—Thousands of fugitives crowd the city. They come from all parts of Poland, but principally from the frontier towns and villages which the Germans have been ravaging for over six weeks.
It rends one's heart to hear of the sufferings of these poor refugees, who are mostly Jews, but with a considerable sprinkling of Poles and Lithuanians. Every available hall and every empty warehouse is filled with them. They must have shelter and food, and Warsaw has risen heroically to the task of providing them with these necessities. Yet how they suffer and what a struggle is theirs for bare existence!
My first visit was to the largest hall in Warsaw, called the Swiss Valley, where the large Philharmonic concerts are usually held and which in ordinary times is the gathering place of society. It is now converted into a refuge for 600 or 700 homeless fugitives, who have left their all behind them and fled in terror, frequently on foot, for many miles, and carrying their possessions on their backs. The majority are old men, women, and children. In the babel of voices are frequently heard pitiful cries of poorly fed children, shrieks of more lusty ones, and groans and wailings of mothers who still seem stunned and stupefied by their frightful experiences.
Dinner was being served when I arrived. At several tables sat women, many with babies in arms, and children, while men were being served in one of the large corridors. Standing in endless rows, they took their turn at the steaming pots. In the main hall many fugitives were crouching on the floor, some on mattresses, and piled about them were little mounds of household effects that they had succeeded in saving from their wrecked and ruined homes. It was truly a picture of direst misery, and in the faces of young and old one could read calamity.
Kalisch is probably a heap of ruins, these recent arrivals tell me, and of the usual population of 65,000 barely 2,000 are left. German soldiers have abandoned the city, but are quartered three or four miles away, in the village of Oputook. Kalisch is only a fortified camp, visited daily, however, by German cavalry, who use it as a reconnoitring base. All gardens have been destroyed and trees cut up for barricades, and even crosses from the cemetery have been displaced and used in fortification work.
Refugees tell dreadful stories of what they saw on their flight through this unfortunate part of Poland. Everywhere are burned and pillaged villages, towns destroyed, and gardens that are heaps of ashes and ruins.
One old man, formerly a country school teacher, saw three peasants hanging from a tree, with all the signs of having been frightfully tortured, as their arms and legs were broken in several places. They evidently had been accused of espionage and summarily executed. While telling me of this sight the old man fairly shook with the terror of reminiscence, and when he finished he was sobbing aloud.
How Warsaw is going to take care of these poor unfortunates is still an unsolved problem. Already a wave of unemployment is spreading in the city, and it will be impossible to find work for this enormous increase in the town's population. Some are being sent to the southern coal mines and others are being employed on fortification works at Novo Georgieoak, but they are the pick of the lot. It is the old and infirm, the women and children, who must be provided for, and though contributions come in steadily, yet there is not half enough relief for all, and appeals are being made both to Petrograd and Moscow, cities which still are practically free from the horrors of war, for speedy help.