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Nazi Rule in Poland Absorbs Vilna, Kaunas; to Impose Same Anti-jewish Laws

August 11, 1941
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Reliable reports reaching here today from the Nazi-occupied Baltic states disclose that though Lithuania has been divided into three administrative units, the administration of Vilna and Kaunas will have to take its orders from Dr. Hans Frank, Nazi ruler of German-occupied Poland. All anti-Jewish laws prevailing in the Government General will automatically be introduced into these districts of Lithuania, the reports stated.

The Lithuanian population, it is further reported, is bitterly disappointed over the annexation of the Vilna and Kaunas districts to the Nazi administration in occupied Poland. Lithuania Nationalist leaders expected that Berlin would proclaim Lithuania an independent country with a Lithuanian administration. They see in the Nazi action a tendency to completely deprive Lithuania of even nominal independence.

Simultaneously, it was reported here today that the Nazis have completed the work of organizing the civil administration in Lwow, Tarnopol and Stanislawow, the part of Galicia regained from the Soviets. The administration in these districts will similarly be under the supervision of Governor General Frank. This is provoking fear among Jews and disappointment among the Ukrainians who were promised these sections of Galicia as a nucleus for an independent Ukraine.

Meanwhile, thousands of Jews are being transported daily from Hungary into the newly occupied sections of Galicia. Expelled from Hungary under the pretext that they are not Hungarian-born, these victims are reaching Galicia under the most horrible conditions and constitute a serious problem to the local Jews who are themselves living under constant terror.

According to figures made public today in Budapest, some 12,000 Jews have so far been exiled from various parts of Hungary into Nazi-occupied Galicia. The Deutsche All-gemeine Zeitung, appearing in Berlin, predicted this week that 10,000 more Jews in Hungary will soon be assembled in special camps there for deportation to Nazi-Galicia. The purge is being carried out with special vigor in the territories of Transylvania and Carpatho-Russia which Hungary, with the help of Berlin, regained from Rumania and Czechoslovakia, respectively, a year ago.

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