Establishment Of Y.W.C.A.

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 15059, 20 August 1949, Page 4

Establishment Of Y.W.C.A.

Tolerant Perspective In

World Relations

Wartime Incident Recalled

A moving'example of the tolerant perspective in world relationships towards which the Y.W.C.A. strives was quoted by the general secretary (Miss Irene Tossill), speaking to women members of the Englishspeaking Union. She recalled a wartime incident in Shanghai during a bombing raid by the Japanese. The American "Y" officer in charge of the headquarters took a roll call in the basement shelter to find that the only staff member missing was a Chinese girl. She raced through the building and at last found her in her bedroom oh the sixth floor, sitting back on her heels, Oriental fashion, lost in rapt admiration of a Japanese etching. "Good gracious, girl, couldn't you find some other time to gaze at pictures?" the American had asked impatiently. She had been humbled by the girl's reply, "It is at a time like this when I must concentrate on the beautiful things that the Japanese have done." • Miss Tossill said that the Y.W.C.A. had been established during the Crimean War and that each war since then had propelled it forward quickly with periods of extreme difficulty between each. "When a crisis comes the Y.W.C.A. is needed," she said, mentioning how its work had covered wide fields in looking after the comfort of women the world over, refugees, concentration camp internees, and in sending trained workers to establish welfare centres in foreign countries. She described conditions in Allied and foreign: countries throughout the war, saying that the "Y" loyalty to its Christian ideal of understanding had brought it under fire many times. The difficulties encountered by German girls in trying to keep the association going, while the Gestapo persecuted members in many subtle ways, were described, and also the Japanese Government's view that as a foreign organisation it had to go. In most occupied countries buildings were requisitioned or destroyed, Denmark's Y.W.C.A. being the only one to escape German conthrol. "Why they were allowed to carry on there without interference we have no idea," Miss Tossill remarked.