LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
EUROPE'S REFUGEES
Ste,—Is there any real issue between Mr. Polanski and myself regarding Displaced Persons who remain in camps in Germany? I think not. I am as eager as he that their resettlement in other countries should be speeded up by the International Refugee Organisation, their protecting body. The Refugee Commission of the World Council of Churches co-operates, through its field officers, with I.R.O. to this end. We press continuously that the family unit shall be the basis of resettlement projects, encourage the Churches in countries of reception to welcome and aid the new immigrants, and are making one experimental provision of long-term care for a group of aged and infirm Displaced Persons for whom emigration is improbable. Equally we are concerned about those who escape from eastern European countries, and seldom a day passes without effort on behalf of some individual who has reached a country of first refuge.
But concern for the ten per cent. of Europe's refugees who are within the mandate of I.R.O. does nothing to alleviate the misfortunes of the more than ten millions of uprooted people of German or German ethnic origin. These are the ninety per cent. of Europe's refugees about whom I wrote in The Spectator of September 17th. Here, it may be, we are at issue. I believe that the driving from their homes of these vast multitudes of men, women and children, and adding the burden of their impoverishment to devastated Germany, was a merciless and mistaken policy ; that the resultant tensions gravely menace the peace of Europe ; and that reason and humane feeling should combine with the Christian obligation in endeavours to mitigate the misery and embitterment thus created.
I renew the appeal for an authoritative and competent enquiry into the living conditions of these exiles, and of the resident populations into whose families and civic life they have been thrust. The first step could and should be taken in the British Zone of Germany, for there our responsibility is direct.—Yours faithfully, HENRY CARTER,
Chairman, Ecumenical Refugee Com- mission, World Council of Churches. 5 Sumner Place, South Kensington, S.W.7.
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