THE ALIENS PROBLEM
Sta,—In Czarist Russia, a regime so utterly disregardful of human suffering, the political exiles transported to Siberia were allowed to be accompanied by their wives. Not Hitler, nor Mussolini and the dark powers they command were able to separate my husband and myself. We fled from country to country, illegally, pursued by police, but clung together obstinately until we reached this country and thought ourselves safe from separation. On Tuesday morning my hus- band, an Austrian refugee of Polish birth and parentage, was interned without previous notice or hearing of his case. I have no idea where be is. As his wife, I must expect internment any hour; communica- tion between camps is not allowed. There are no mixed camps yet for man and wife.
British women are deprived of their husbands • I would gladly have shared their fate, and my husband volunteered for admission into the Territorial Army at the outbreak of war. They, at least, are in their country, at home, with their families, children, friends. Hitler has scattered our families from the Far and Near East to America ; we have no-children, no home, no relative, no friend in this country, not a chair, -not a brick we can call-our own. Oer of the chaos we saved only each other and were satisfied. I do not beg for freedom ; I beg for the primitive right exercised since centuries of being allowed to accompany my husband into internment to face with him what is still in store. For my keep, I will do the domestic work in the camp.
Do not fulfil what Nazidom and Fascism failed to do ; let me not appeal in vain in this last outpost of European civilisation.—Yours faithfully, THERESE STEUER. 559 Reddings Lane, Birmingham, 28.
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