THE PLIGHT OF THE BALTIC DP
THE PLIGHT OF THE BALTIC DP By Kaarel R. Pusta, Sr. AFTER the First World War one of the prime tasks of the League L of Nations was to settle the status of persons without a fatherland er...
...There are Baltic fine arts schools in Munich...
...But no accumulation of unused annual quotas is allowed and each refugee must provide affidavits from two wealthy American citizens...
...No political refugee or forcibly <Tisplaced person should be compelled to return against his will...
...Why should not the Baltic refugees in Sweden stay in that democratic country whose culture, social structure and way of life had been so successfully emulated in the free Baltic Republics...
...Associate Member ef the Institute ef laterastiensl Law, sathor ef several studies est Baltic and Barepeen problems...
...They long for normal life and work, but not for woik in slave labor camp%> in Russia...
...The- "information" supplied to refugees and displaced persons "from the governments of their countries of origin" is ignored by the Baltic DPs for instance...
...Repatriation While Russia and her satellites seek to compel all DPs to return to their homelands, the majority in the UN view the DP as a subject of international concern who should be treated with due consideration of his safety and welfare...
...A report of a US Senate War Investigating Committee accused the DPs of refusing to be repatriated or to work...
...And in June, 1946, the Soviet Gov ernment asked Sweden to deliver an additional number of Baltic refugees...
...Until the restrictive "new order," Baltic DP camps had achieved great improvement under the direction of their elected officers...
...The University and its campus had been praised by visiting American senators, members of the British parliament, and by t\e Director of UNRRA, LaGuardia...
...France is an underpopulated country ^afcieh badly needs farmers and industrial '•erkers for its restoration...
...Is it because a special agreement was reached between General de Gaulle and Stalin concerning "repatriation" which is still valid...
...The Lithuanian refugees, who are not the largest group among the Baits, had printed in the period between April and December, 1945, 63 periodicals in the US Zone and 3G in the British Zone...
...But it is particularly the fate of Poles, Halts, Ukrainians, Jews and Yugoslavs, which troubles the Inter-Governmental' Committee, UNKRA, and the Economic and Social Council of UN...
...There were also 20 Lithuanian gymnasia, 11 high schools, 112 grammar schools, 71 kindergartens, with 1,400 teachers and over 12,000 pupils in western Germany...
...The Second World War drove millions of "people from their homes...
...There was at that time a little more respect for personal liberty, hence the refugees were not 'forced to nccept repatriation nor to abjure their nationality, but were allowed to dwell freely in all countries—except Russia— with their "Nansen passports...
...Democracy in the widest sense means much more than a form of government * * * it Is indeed a system of social organization affecting almost every relation of man to man...
...Immigrants wishing to acquire land in Columbia, must seek it in low-lying tropical areas...
...There is the case of 157 Baltic refugees who escaped before the end of the war and were handed over to Russia by the Swedish Government in January 1946, in spite of the proven fact of their forcible mobilization during the German occupation, and the circumstance that of the 157 extradited persons 67 were minors, 16 to 19 years of age...
...The Draft Constitution of the International Refugee Organization, substitute for the moribund UNRRA, excludes from the rare of IRO "leaders of movements hostile to the Government of their country of origin being a member of the United Nations or sponsors of movements encouraging refugees not to return to their country of origin...
...According to reliable sources, 157 persons were summarily executed in Riga two months later...
...Circulars issued by UNRRA headquarters in the American zone order the directors of camps to report on any anti-repatriation propaganda among the DPs and enjoin them to carry out the repatriation more vigorously...
...The issue is whether they should be forced to return to their countries which are at present under foreign totalitarian Communist regimes...
...they refuse to trust Russian puppets or NKVD agents in their occupied countries...
...Since the overwhelming majority of Baltic refugees fled their countries just before ths second Soviet invasion, in September 1944, they all are political refugees and, hence, under paragraph 58 of the Soviet Code, liable to punishment by execution or, in the case of "extenuating circumstances," imprisonment and slave labor...
...It is therefore not love of adventure that incites Estonian...
...But Australia will need about two years before the way is clear to facilitate the transport and entry of nonBritish Europeans...
...Of the latter Estonia has about the same quota as tbt Republic of Andorra—116 a year...
...to sail from Sweden ami cross wide oceans in lifeboats, with women and children aboard...
...AFTER the First World War one of the prime tasks of the League L of Nations was to settle the status of persons without a fatherland er rather without access to their fatherland...
...But the Baltic University had to change its name to "DP University Study Centre" and its professors were reduced to the rank of "instructors...
...The "persuasion" of Baltic refugees by Russian NKVD agents would be indeed In obvious contradiction to the policy of the USA and Britain since these governments do not recognise the annexation of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union...
...There is a musical conservatory in Geislingen Camp, American zone, also a Polytechnic of Study Centre created by Baltic professors, and 32 cooperative handiwork shops...
...A Baltic University was created by Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian professors in Hamburg...
...Although this request has not been granted, the Balls feel that Sweden is a small nation, close to Russia, and the refugees constitute an embarrassment ia relations with her mighty neighbor...
...For example, Baltic refugees who fled in 1944 to Sweden in small boats, almost penniless, all have found work, organised their relief committees and religious con- • gregations...
...The same is true of New Zealand, whose Government, moreover, does not favor any mass or group immigration of refugees...
...From Estonia alone there are about 110,000 refugees abroad and 80,000 of them are in the American and British zones...
...It Is a system which ideally at least, attempts to equalise the opportunities and responsibilities ef individuals In society...
...There are Baltic theatres in Germany...
...Several thousands of Eastern and Central Europesns In Germany would probably stay there, if they were givsn the chance to live a decent life without provoking ths envy of the Germans...
...He expressed the hope that some governments, especially Poland and Yugoslavia, send representatives into the DP camps in Germany to "persuade" the inmates to return...
...he was a delegate to the League ef Nations...
...But acaccording to some slanderers refugees are just "Fascists" or spoiled persons who are unwilling to return because they prefer idleness in camps to facing the hardships involved in the reconstruction of their countries...
...Professor Robert C. Riggle, UNRRA welfare officer and trustee for the Baltic University, praised the Baltic students who almost with their bare hands built up two camps, installed offices and lecture rooms and arranged the Hamburg Historical Museum...
...Yet the administration is greatly concerned—about food...
...Under existing regulations Canada accepts only soms categories of British and United States citizens, and agriculturalists having sufficient means to farm...
...He did not include Jews, however, In such a repatriation program...
...27,370 to Germany, 6,524 to Poland...
...Professors snd students receive only 1,500 calories a day instead of 3,600, which is considered the minimum ration for intellectual workers...
...Similar appeals were presented by ths Latvian and Lithuanian DPs, who don't want to remaia indefinitely ss indigents under the care of UNRRA or sny other organisations...
...Their employment would be a temporary measurtfHo help the restoration of England and to glee the Baltic DPs an opportunity for readjustment, until they may freely* decide their future...
...Therefore, we must face that problem as it is...
...Plate...
...Moreover, the Baltic refugees know that there is no record of direct repatriation to Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania, but they have seen NKVD certificates for "repatriation" to Siberia of Baits...
...This charge must be emphatically rejected as far as the Baltic refugees aro concerned...
...The DP camps do not fly the swastika and they do not practice torture, but they ate concentration camps nevertheless," stated Life (Sept...
...Baltic fairs and festivals were held in Germany and Sweden...
...Riggle...
...In ths period from 1940 to 1945 only 241,708 immigrant aliens have been admitted to the States, and 64,157 persons emigrated from America during the same period...
...If percent of these immigrants are mfc be workers with families...
...Alone the Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians registered in the American, British and French camps in Germany number about 250,000 persons...
...There were 3,000,000 displaced persons of 22 nationalities in a dozen European countries, of which according to Earl G. Harrison, United States representative on the Intergovernmental Committee of Refugees, about half "will not and should not be compelled to return to their homeland...
...But why are there 3w about 80,000 refugees in the French jfc*, against 400,000 in the British and In the American camps...
...Apart from some millions of Sudeten Germans,hundreds of thousands of escaped Russians and other distressed people, who are not admitted to the official category of DPs, Fiorello LaGuardia estimated at a press conference, in August, 1946, that eat of 850/)0O DPs in UNRRA camps, probably 460,000 may be considered repatriable...
...It would seem that the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations has an excellent opportunity of inviting other countries in need of qualified manual and intellectual worker-i, to look for them in the DP camps...
...It would seem that France all alone PMi easily sales the question of reaMUemerit of 880,000 European farmers, MMtaers, ftihermsB,, professional man flM skilled workers...
...Now it seems that, owing to political conditions in the immigration countries, there is little hope that large groups of DPs can quit the ramps in Germany within two yesrs...
...They were mostly Russians—about 1,500,000—who did not want to return to Soviet rule...
...In spite of the shortage of paper and the suspicion surrounding the DP concentration camps a great number of periodicals and books have been published also in Germany...
...is probably the greatest experiment in humanitarianism the world has ever known," said Howard C. Peterson, the US Assistant Secretary of War...
...established schools "and junior colleges as well as scientific societies...
...Estonian Mlatatsr In If 14-IS...
...of this number 83,574 were allotted to ths United Kingdom and Ireland...
...A MEMORANDUM signed in September by 18,000 Estonian refugees appealed to the British and American Governments for restoration of Estonia's freedom as the best way to settle the problem of Estonian DPs...
...The Special Committee on Refugees and Displaced Persons and the Economic and Social Council have not adopted a workable plan for the settlement of the DPs problem, and it is now before the General Assembly of the United Nations...
...Alresdy some hundreds of Baltic women are working as nurses In British hospitals, Every free man should rejoice at this first rational approach to the alarming DP problem in Germany and wish full success to the British Government in its undertaking...
...Until February, 1946, only 16 Estonian refugees had asked to be repatriated and two of them have reescaped from Russia...
...And even though exit from Germany is barred by immigration laws, UNRRA intensifies its warnings against any "anti-repatriation propaganda...
...Unfortunately, the constant scolding of DPs by UNRRA and Army officials, the unexplained restrictions upon their organizations, correspondence and reading matter, the suspension of their publications and committees, including the national Red Cross committees, combined with vexatious "screenings," especially in the American zone, is felt by DPs to be a serious warning that they are only temporarily tolerated and will be treated with increasing severity...
...Wtoirovt Wilton, * "Freedom ia a democracy is the glory of the state, and, therefore, In a democracy only will the frecftam ef natsrs deign to dwell...
...The Lithuanian American or- . Ionizations, Baltic Humanitarian Association in Sweden, and the International Students Relief in Geneva, have supplied the University with books and other materials...
...They hope to go back to their own countries if they are freed — or to another free land and build now homes...
...And as for Baits, he said: "I do not think the Baits will go back...
...But who can expect this in an utterly dsstroyed country populated with an *mUttered starving people, of whom 10,480,000 are reported to be unemployed...
...This university started without textbooks or even paper anil pencils, and in October, 1946, 150 professors taught 1,200 students while some 300 professors and over 2,000 students were waiting for space...
...Character of DP's ExCEPT tor a comparatively small number of delinquents, the DPs are worthy persons who have shown much courage and a remarkable sense of selfdiscipline and cooperation in their plight...
...The Estonian and Latvian refugees in Sweden, numbering about 25,000, publish several outstanding newspapers and magazines, and scores of books...
...They certainly don't loiter in the DP concentration camps by choice...
...The total of the United Statu annual immigration quotas is 153,879...
...They also know that, according to the Soviet Penal Code, mere flight abroad is considered a "counter-revolutionary action" tantamount to treason...
...The care of displaced persons...
...And why should UN and its new IRO support the Soviet Government in Its opposition to DPs since it was Soviet tyranny that forced hundreds of thousands of liberty loving people to flee from their countries...
...and only 788 to the Baltic States...
...M. Paullebeit Prigent, Minister of Population, ^hehvred In October, 1946, at Chicago that France will offer 700,000 German prlson••rthe opportunity of staying in France ^e* part of an increase-the-population 8amnaign.M He said that France is plan. *Nr a ton-year immigration program ihtod at gstting 8,000,000 new citizens...
...Why not ask Russia to repatriate first some hundred thousands Baits from Siberia, where they were deported since June 19407 • * * The Receiving Countries O F the "receiving" countries only seven at the London Conference of the Special Committee, which met in London last April, expressed interest in European refugee-immigrants, especially agriculturalists...
...The reason why the refugees from Russian dominated lands must stay In the American DP camps, was esplaleed by Senator Arthur Vandenbergi they are "persecutees" and they are afraid of their lives If they are sent to the Insslan sons, or If they are sent home...
...One would think that this unique institution of intellectual cooperation should merit the full support of UN and UNESCO...
...They are exhausted and the only hope to same them from starvation lies now in private humanitarian organizations, stated Prof...
...BALTIC LIBERTIES Kssrel R. Pasta, Sr., was Envoy of tha Estonian Republic to Frsaee snd several ether Earopean countries between 1918 sad 1919...
...This was put clearly in a broadcast mads in November by Sir Harold Ingham, the counsel of the British Labor Office, who suggested that the Baltic DPs be invited to work in English farms, factories and laboratories...
...Brazil does not want concentrations of groups of ths same race or nationality in any given area of its huge country...
...He has been t rssfnant ef the United State* since October, 1948...
Vol. 30 • February 1947 • No. 5
