1941 made the situation of the Catholics in that region still more difficult.

"For example, on November 19, 1941 came a decree of the Reich lieutenant by which among other things it was set forth that, as from the previous September 13th, the property of the former juridical persons of the Roman Catholic Church should pass over to the 'Römisch-katholische Kirche deutscher Nationalität im Reichsgau Wartheland' insofar as, on the request of the above-mentioned 'Religionsgesellschaft' such property shall be recognized by the Reich lieutenant as 'non- Polish property.' In virtue of this decree practically all the goods of the Catholic Church in the 'Warthegau' were lost."

"If we pass from the 'Warthegau' to the other territories in the East, we unfortunately find there, too, acts and measures against the rights of the Church and of the Catholic faithful, though they vary in gravity and extension from one place to another.

"In the provinces which were declared annexed to the German Reich and joined up with the Gaue of East Prussia, of Danzig West Prussia and of Upper Silesia, the situation is very like that described above in regard to seminaries, the use of the Polish mother-tongue in sacred functions, charitable works, associations of Catholic Action, the separation of the faithful according to nationality. There, too, one must deplore the closing of churches to public worship, the exile, deportation, the violent death of not a few of the clergy (reduced by two-thirds in the diocese of Culma and by at least a third in the diocese of Katowice), the suppression of religious instruction in the schools, and above all the complete suppression in fact of the Episcopate. Actually, after the Bishop of Culma, who had left during the military operations, had been refused permission to return to his diocese, there followed in February 1941 the expulsion of the Bishop of Plock and his auxiliary, who both died later in captivity;" the Bishop, the venerable octogenarian Monseigneur Julian Anthony Nowowiejski, died at Dzialdowo on May 28th, 1941, and the auxiliary, Monseigneur Leo Wetmanski, 'in a transit camp' on October 10th of the same year.

"In the territory called the 'Generalgouvernement,' as in the Polish provinces which had been occupied by Soviet troops in the period between September 1939 and June 1941, the religious situation is such as to cause the Holy See lively apprehension and serious preoccupation. Without pausing to describe the treatment meted out in many cases to the clergy