200,000 Jews Roam Galicia Begging Bread from Peasants

Approximately 200,000 Jews, including women and children, are wandering from village to village in Soviet-occupied Galicia, begging the Ukrainian peasants for bread, which they are unable to buy, according to reports reaching Paris today.

The food shortage is felt particularly among the Jews in Tarnopol. The misery is increased by the fact that able-bodied younger Jews emigrate into central Russia to seek work.

Private trade is completely liquidated throughout the occupied area, not because of any particular law but because all reserves have been sold out and no new commodities have arrived from the interior of Russia. Shoes and clothing have disappeared.

The situation is particularly serious in Lwow, where there are still a half million refugees lacking shelter and sufficient food. In Stryj, Tarnopol and Kolomeya, Jewish commissars have been replaced by Ukrainians who are not particularly friendly to the Jews.

In Kremenetz, 50 German families being repatriated to the Reich under the population exchange agreement, shouted “Down with the Jews! Death to the Jews!” as their train pulled out of the station. The Soviet authorities did not interfere. The train was escorted by several Reich officials.

Many of the Zionist leaders arrested in Soviet-occupied Poland have been released after being obliged to take pledges of loyalty to the Soviet regime.

Zionist youths, however, are moving from their towns either to central Russia, where they can find work, or towards Odessa, where they hope to find an opportunity to embark for Palestine. The disappearance of Jewish youths is especially noticeable in Lwow, Stanislwow, Bialystok, Stryj and Grodno.

In Kolomeya, the Soviet authorities have confiscated all synagogues.