Vilna (Mar. 18)
Hunger is spreading among the Jewish population in the towns along the Polish-Lithuanian frontier. Requests for iimmediate assistance are arriving from many points. The suffering in many villages affected by last year’s bad crop is now spreading to the towns.
The Jewish population, already completely exhausted through economic oppression, competition with the Christian cooperatives and the high taxes, is not in a position to cope with the approaching hunger situation brought about by the extraordinary and early winter. The situation is particularly desperate in the provinces of Swendizian and Breslav.
Epidemies, particularly typhoid, are spreading in the villages where, because of the great frosts, the peasants are forced to keep the cattle in their houses. These epidemics are also endangering the towns, where the Jewish population is concentrated. Farmers in the large Jewish colonies Droisk and Dubinow are being directly affected by hunger, having neither bread, potatoes nor forage for cattle. No seed is left for next year.
Local help on the part of Lithuanian Jews to aid the colonists has been insignificant because the situation in the towns is no better. The Government sends 10,000 zlotys monthly to each village. The Jews in the towns, however, have not received anything because they have not yet been directly affected by hunger.