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undoubtedly would immediately be arrested and condemned. Therefore,
General Zukow considers it necessary that the Bishop and all chaplains
should leave Russia with the last transport of evacuated (N.B. This
conversation should be held secret.)
In order to assure a minimum of religious aid after
the departure of the Polish army, the Embassy requested that Father
Kozloweki at the Embassy and 20 chaplains in other districts should be
allowed to remain in the U.S.S.R. Father Kozlowski left for the Eabassy,
but having been refused a permit of stay he had to come back to the army.
e was not allowed to go to the Embassy in Kulbyshev once mor
The director of the Foreign Office Nowlkow informed
the Embassy that the aforesaid 20 chaplains would not
receive permit to stay in the U.S.S.R. and that Father Kozlowski would not
even be given permission to go to Kuibyshev.
On the 21st of August, 1942, General Zukow informed His Excellency Bishop
Gawlina that Father Kozlowski and the 20 chaplains should leave Russia
not later than on the first of September, 1942.
The Polish Embassy was equally informed by note that
the Foreign Office found it impossible to allow the persons stated in the
note of the Embassy to stay in the U.S.S.R. and that they should therefore
leave together with the army.
In this way at present the Polish population in Russia
is deprived of all religious care and the religious free-
dom in fact turns out to be a fiction.
We may add that up till now 52 priests deported from
Poland are still kept In prison. Besides those 26 priests were at the time
kept on the Solowki Islands, 32 are still in concentration camps, and 44
are forced to stay in limited places of sojourn. There are therefore 154
priests who could give religious assistance to the Polish population
should they be set at liberty.
Two transports of religious objects chiefly prayer
books of the Catholic Truth Society sent from England and
the United States of America have been confiscated by the
Peoples Home Commissaries.
REQUESTS