The Tragedy of Displaced Persons
Root, Robert
The Tragedy of Displaced Persons This Winter Will Be Worse Than Any Winter for Millions By Robert Root Roving European correspondent of The New Leader GENEVA—An American friend, just arrived...
...Officers of the American army tell how Hungarians have been forced back Into their zone by American soldiers, with fixed bayonets, acting reluctsntly under orders...
...Hundreds perish along these roads in a march of death not unlike Bataan...
...Added to the misery of those in the west is uncertainty as to whether they will be deported to ths east Apparently many of the refugees here belong to elements considered unfriendly to the Soviet Union and they fear Siberia or execution if they fall into the hands of the Reds...
...of Berlin—6,000,000 to 8,000,000 of them— many of whom are in camps, where ssttger meals keep life going but where rations dare not go above those of the German populace...
...This ex planation will hardly add to the security of the Baits who do not want to be dumped back into the Russian-occupied areas the way the eastern peoples are dumping others in the British and American zones...
...A bitter twist to this tragedy which affects people of many nationalities is that it is the one-time master Germans —or, rather, their wives and children— who are the pariahs, the neo Jews...
...Yet near Linz, in Austria, are masses of refugee children from the Sudeten-land, Vienna, Hungary and Yugoslavia...
...Some towns in Bohemia and Moravia are said to be without inhabitants...
...Among the most desperate of these hungry people are the refugees eas...
...Only a pint of milk a day, or half that, can *» bought for many infants...
...Their age ranged from two to 14 years, and their faces bore the marks of severe privation...
...An American chaplain who had been stationed in Czechoslovakia told me that Germans there were on the former Jewish starvation ration...
...An emaciated woman with 4*rk rings under her eyes and boilt all •ver her face could do nothing but curse herself because she was incspsble of <*arting her two wailing infants...
...So far, humanitarian agencies, both governmental and private, seem to have moved only into the preliminary stages of meeting their needs...
...Mortality is extremely high, as there are no medicines available...
...Others camp beside tat railroad stations, with next to nothing to eat or cover them...
...Sen., a pastor's wife, was driven away from...
...The Soviet Union would seem to be hardy enough to face the facts of life in the clouded domain that it controls...
...The peasants to whom she sppealed on her way would not take her in because she was not able to do a full day's work on account of her children...
...A REPORT of, the International Red Cross includes this account of a boatload of starving child wanderers who arrived in Berlin from Stettin: "The barge bore a terrible cargo...
...I have held in my hand a Czech ration card with "Deutsch" stamped in blue letters across it, in place of "Jude...
...A pastor from a Polish colony of 10,000 Germans, of whom only 1,000 remain, said he has already conducted 97 funerals this year, as compared with a usual annual total of 20...
...From here and there come little stories of individual tragedies in this mass misery...
...Others cling to the sides of freight cars or trudge along roads in search of something bettor...
...Highways sre so infested with them that refugees srs h*1'1 up dozens of times during their ••sdlong flight into Germsny...
...Everybody in international circles here who knows anything about what's going on knows that the misery is so great it cannot be comprehended in a country which has suffered so little as Switzerland during the war, let alone ess like a United States with gas in the tank again, and rationing on most necessities ended...
...Nearly 300 inmates of a children's home of the Evangelical Church, sent there from the Christ Child Home at Finken-walde, in Pomerania, and a stall of 31 deaconnesses...
...Already large numbers from the east have come into these zones, and thousands of children who are evacuated from the Ruhr and other devastated towns to what is now the Russian zone must be sent back...
...The Tragedy of Displaced Persons This Winter Will Be Worse Than Any Winter for Millions By Robert Root Roving European correspondent of The New Leader GENEVA—An American friend, just arrived from Paris, tola me that from two diverse sources in f rsnre he heard a report there may be «a war" soon in which some sort of European coalition, with Soviet support, »ould seek to drive the Anglo Saxons from the continent Then I picked up a Washington AP dispatch and read that some American officials are wondering whether condign, in Central Europe "that might Istd to another war, are already becoming faintly evident" While from here such talk about "the next war" so soon sounds like somebody's dream, the very utterance of such ideas underlines the fact that the major political consideration east of the Rhine today—hunger and cold—looms above sscrs politics...
...Others fled to similar disaster in Saxony...
...2, 1944," says a well-known German who spent two years in a concentration camp for aiding Jews...
...these people are to be raised again to the level of human personalities and to the hope of the good life, it will require international agreement and effort at the highest levels...
...Speaking German may result in violence...
...The children of a conquered people must be spared the hatred of the world...
...Already food is short here too, and the deathrate among children has been going up in recent months...
...Displaced persons' is s cold phrase to describe the human needs of all these people...
...Covered with boils, scabies and vermin, they huddled at the bottom of the hold...
...When they crossed the Oder on to German territory, they were dumped on the right-of-way without any means of transportation or any possibility of feeding or lodging themselves...
...Since then she has been on the highroad with her children of 7, 6, 3, and 2 years and has arrived in Berlin in a state of utter exhaustion...
...Bystanders succeeded in calling in the welfare officers of the district of Wedding and Charlot-tenburg, who gave first aid...
...All the children were dying of hunger...
...Not being allowed to stay in Berlin, she cannot obtain ration cards...
...As a result, there have been epidemics of typhus and diphtheria...
...This attitude is hardly complimentary to the Soviet Union...
...The real solution for Central Europe must be sought outside the continent...
...Pillage, rape and .murder are committed constantly by unruly gangs of Polish youths out of uniform," wrote *n American visitor recently returned j»» from Germany...
...In the jargon, the words have been shortened simply, to "DP's"—initials that make their present nothingness even more pointed...
...On their way westward they had no food for °*ys on end...
...in East Prussia on Aug...
...In one eastern village, there were 26 suicides in a population of 600...
...About 300,000, mostly women and children, fled to Austria, where it is impossible to feed them...
...Mothers cannot nurse their babies...
...A Swiss who crossed northern Bohemia estimates that about 1,000,000 of the 3,500,000 Sudeten Germans have been driven away...
...The British commandant of the district of Wedding was notified and arrived immediately...
...Tet this knowledge is coupled with the greatest caution about saying very much openly on the subject...
...Their abdomens, knees and feet were swollen—a typical symptom of starvation...
...The stories told by these outcasts are all alike," says an Exchange dispatch in ft» Tot...
...He described a train of refugees from Danzig which he saw at the station in K iistrin: "The refugees were packed like herring in cattle cars and were plundered by the Poles...
...Mrs...
...They speak of their husbands who have been missing for months and sf the brutal methods of deportation, sisst of them were given notice to quit their hornet in lass than half an hour and were allowed to take away only a ¦nail amount of hand luggage, much of which was lost or stolen on the way...
...The actual fact is that millions— UNRRA's director, Herbert Lehman, says 180,000,000—are living in Ger-¦any, Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Baltics, and the Balkans on the verge sf starvation, with little hope for the future if they do survive...
...The barge with its terrible freight offered an intensely tragic picture and lay on the still water like a silent reproach against mankind...
...It assumes that everything is 'lovely in the American ami British zones, which is not true, and it assumes that the Russians have plenty of food and transport to solve everything, which is very doubtful after the scarification between Berlin and Stalin grad...
...The children have had no food whatever since yesterday and cry with hunger whenever they awake from sleep...
...Adult* are responsible for its organization and prosecution...
...The implication is always that Russia will feel she is being criticized and grow more suspicious...
...Near the station of Kottbut near Berlin are 42 graves of refugees who perished among the multitudes lying along the railroad tracks...
...She ran no longer bear to hear them, and I have nothing to give, as we ourselves have had no bread for a day and a half...
...Flies choked their nostrils and ears, and many were too weak to drive them away...
...Two days afterwards, he confessed that ihc evening after the sight he had witnessed, he had found it impossible to eat his supper . . . "War is now at an end...
...All those kern this year in some places are dead...
...If governments and agencies together do not act effectively very soon, this first "post war winter1 in Europe wilt he for multitudes even worse than the past sir war winters...
...The child has no kind of responsibility...
...Many Poles and Czechs appear bent on vengeance, eye for an eye...
...In another of 800, there were 40...
...the western and southern area under Anglo-American control offers no real haven to these tormented people, for conditions there are only a little better...
...Many are women and children...
...The explanation made here for such violence is that the Yalta agreement provided that refugees should be returned to their homelands...
...Deeply impressed by the sight, he offered his assistance...
Vol. 28 • November 1945 • No. 47
