According to the data collected by the General Polish Relief Committee, =in Poland, alone there are at least 200 towns and about 9,000 townlets and villages that have suffered from the war, the material damage amounting to the gigantic figure of over a milliard roubles ($500,000,000).= Besides the terrible losses sustained by the rural population, the whole industrial production, amounting to nearly 800 million roubles a year, has been ruined. About three million townspeople are destitute, and of these three million at least half, i. e., 1,500,000, are Jews. To this number of unfortunate victims we have to add the population of the provinces of Kovno and Grodno in the northwestern region of the Pale, the provinces of Bessarabia, Podolia and Volynia in the southern and southwestern regions. These provinces, bordering upon Germany and Austria, have a Jewish population of at least 500,000 people. =Thus the total number of Jews that have, in one way or another, suffered immediately from the conditions of warfare equals over two million people, representing one-third, of the total Jewish population of Russia.= Besides, there are hundred thousands of destitute Jews in Galicia (within Russian occupation) looking forward to relief from this country. To the utter ruin of their material welfare there are added the unspeakable sufferings that the population of the war area has to endure. In the most favorable of cases the inhabitants of the border places escape from the zone of fire, taking refuge in the inner parts of the country; while a large proportion of those unfortunate Jewish families have remained in the ruined places, facing the phantoms of starvation and disease that gather a rich harvest among them. Such is the devotion and love of the Jews to their native places, to their own corner, that they prefer to stay in the devastated towns and townlets and villages, if only permitted to do so. And those who have fled from their homes take the first opportunity of returning, heedless of the terrible disasters lying in store for them. A vivid example, typical of many other instances, is given by the Jews in the villages of Vissiltsy, District Busak, province Kielce. Our delegate found the place razed by hostile shells. The population—mostly Jews—for over three months had been huddling together in cellars, where they had taken refuge. They were not to leave their shelter by day; no food was to be cooked, no fire lighted at night—such were the stringent orders from military quarters. A humane military chief permitted them to crawl out of their dingy holes by night and feed out of the soldiers’ cauldron. But soon another chief took his place and the unfortunate Jews were left to starve in their cellars. =Those that succumbed were buried in holes that the survivors dug for them in the very same cellars....=