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Some months ago, the Poles obtained a ruling from the Permanent International Court of Justice at the Hague, confirming the justice of their contention that all Germans who had voted for Germany in the 1921 plebiscite and who were incorporated in the Polish Republic (there are 400,000 of them) should be repatriated* to Germany. The German Government was informed by the Polish Government that its right to repatriate Germans resident in Polish Silesia would be exercised. Diplomatic negotiations were opened and, although it was clear that the Poles were inexorably bent upon carrying out their plans, the German Government took no steps to provide for the refugees from Poland. Either this was their stupidity or, more probably, a maneuver to show the Polish Government in the most unfavorable light.
At any rate, it was not until scandals of the infamous conditions (huddling like sheep of some 10,000 to 15,000 persons in dirty, tumbledown sheds scarcely large enough for half that number) at the Schneidemühl concentration camp had shaken the whole Fatherland, that a cinema, a sewing circle for girls, a sporting club for men were organized to bring cheer to the miserable.
As described above, the German Government took retaliatory measures by repatriating Poles, and the exodoi were completed. There the matter stood and will stand until Dec. 1, when the biting cold of a Silesian winter will add, incongruously enough, fuel to the raging fire of hate that one day must (so many a well-informed critic professes) lead to a bitter European war in which strange alignments of Powers will be seen.
*Repatriation is used in the post-War
sense of the word. In the pre-War sense,
Germany inhabitants of Upper Silesia were expatriated.