PRIVILEGED IMMIGRATION
Sut,—We are somewhat puzzled about the Government's policy with regard to foreigners entering this country. We both worked in Belsen concentration camp for over a year doing welfare work—having arrived there a few days after the liberation. For the last few months before we left, we were dealing with those girls who wished to come to the British Isles under the Government's Domestic Service Scheme for Dis- placed Persons, and cannot understand why German girls who have been in concentration camps are barred from coming to this country, while German girls who were fighting us a bade over eighteen mcodu ago are allowed to marry our British men and can come bete without any difficulty. One girl—a German Jewess trained as a kindergarten teacher—who had been deprived of her German nationality by Hitler and whose mother had died in a concentration camp, while she herself suffered five years of unspeakable atrocities in various Concentration.
camps, wished to come to England as a domestic help, but when she was applied for in the official way, the Labour Exchange returned the application on the score that "she was German born," in spite of the fact that we sent papers showing what loyal and efficient help she h_ad given to the British authorities after the liberation, when she had recovered from typhus.
Has it ever occurred to the authorities to consider the type of German girl who is willing and anxious to marry British soldiers in Germany? If the Germans had been in occupation of Great Paitain, what would we have thought of the British girls who would have been willing to marry German soldiers within eighteen months of the cessation of hos- tilities? We know there are exceptions, but it seems unjust to encourage these German girls to come here and to ban a poor girl who has suffercd the horrors of a concentration camp. This case is by no means unique. Do not for a moment think we are over-prejudiced towards D.P.s. We are the first to admit after a certain amount of experience that there are good and bad as in everything else, but we should like to see justice done to those who have already proved by their work that they would be good, loyal citizens.—Yours faithfully, M. E. MONTGOMERY, Dalswinton, Dumfries. G. K. CROSTHWAITE.
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