STRANDED AND HOMELESS.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16546, 11 June 1919, Page 7

STRANDED AND HOMELESS.

* SAD SIGHTS IN SWITZERLAND, j " 1 SrECI.U.T/r WRITTEN FOP. "THE tress. ) (By Mrs Julian Grande.) | BERXE. April 21. ! "Our house has just hopn broken into j 'or the third time, and I suppose now ( :!'.?re\s hardly anything left," an Irish i ady said to me yesterday, whose bus- 1 jrmd for the last twentv or thirty . •ears before the war had been a pastor n Hamburg. In July, 1914. he and lis family were spending their holidays n Switzerland, where they have been, if course, stranded ever since. As "the ivife remarked, "Everything that we iiave collected in our lifetime to build ip our home has now gone." And yet trying as this casa is, it is in reality one of the least trying of the many of which I know here at present, rhis minister and his wife have at any rate been able to find useful occupation here, ho that of a pnstor, she that of looking after some of the British interned here, whereas many of those now stranded in Switzerland are able to find no suitable work and do not know which way to turn for a living. "I was three years and a half interned at Ruhleben, treated like a dog, and now I cannot get home," said a young fellow to me, who looked a mere boy, although he was really 22 or 23. "How's that?" I asked. "My father had lived in England for forty years before the war, but he never became naturalised. I was born in England, and went to school there, but unfortunately just before the war I went to Berlin for an electrical engineering firm, and I was there when war broke out. As I was a British subject, I was interned, and, my father being still a German, was also interned —in England." And now this young fellow is wasting his time knocking about Switzerland, while the wiseacres at the Home Office, or the Foreign Office, or some muddling office are deciding what is to be done with him. "Before the war mv brother advised me to invest my small capital in Hungarian Railways, which then paid very well; and so I managed to live. Now for the last five years I have not received a penny, and I don't know whether I shall ever see the capital again." This is the ease of an elderly British lady, who, because of her delicate health, has been living in the Italian Lakes district of Switzerland, and who even were she not delicate, would be no longer young enough to take up the I struggle for life. "I have just arrived from France, where I have been interned for four and a half years. In July, 1914. I had just passed bv examination at Vienna University, and I thought I would take a holiday in Paris. When war broke out I was, of course, interned, and at first suffered abominably, but afterwards I found that with a little-money I could manage to get what I wanted. Now I have nowhere to go, I have no home, and no country." This was the story of a young Hungarian whom I met in Berne a few days ago. He was an attractive-look-ing young fellow, with an open, straightforward countenance. He had by no means wasted his four and a half years, however, for during that time he had learned by himself to read and to some extent speak both French and English. His only means of subsistence now is translating extracts from English _ newspapers into Gorman or Hungarian as the caso may be, by which lie earns just enough to keep body and soul together. Before the war he had a liberal income from his mother— about £1000 a year. Now his mother is dead, and her income has disappeared with most things Hungarian. "Yesterday at midday a Russian lady called at my shop," said one of the principal jewellers in Berne to me some months ago, "and sol r l me a ring for which I paid her Frs. 9000. In the afternoon another lady, from the same hotel, came in and bought this ring. In the evening at dinner the Russian lady saw the other, the wife of a war profiteer, wearing the ring. The Russian lady has now sold all her jewellery, ani , lives with her Swiss friends, who hav« taken her in as an act of charity. She used to be a millionairess." | A Russian professor who did some work for me during the war and who _ used to have a regular incomo from Russia, said to me the other day: "All I have now is Frs. 65 a month, kindly given me by the American Red Cross." [ With food prices as they are now, he , just manages to exist, but bis boot? . are worn out, his clothes are shabby, [ and the underfeeding is beginning tc tell upon him.

.An Austrian lady, the widow of a well known diplomatist, one of tlie most distinguished of his day, has an income of 1000 Austrian Kronen per month. At ordinary times this would have amonnted to rather more than £40— not- too much, for she has three ehildren to support besides herself. Now, however, when she brings her thousand Kronen to the bank to exchange them for Swiss money, she receives about Frs. 170 instead of about Frs. 1150. She used to be very elegantly dressed, but now, like many people whom I see every day, she is wearing out clothes which were good and fashionable in (their time, but now show signs of wear and look hopelessly out of date. A well-known German journalist who, in 1914, had a good position on the staff of a leading Berlin paper, left thin because he was not in sympathy with Germany's attack upon Belgium and France. "During the war lie made no attempt to conceal his opinions and ! sacrificed everything for Fiance, which 'is, after all, not his country. _ Ho was, in short, as he- still i*. an During the .war the French propagandist aa"nts availed themselves largely of Jus abilities, but now they have nothing for him. and no help. He and his familv, therefore, are left stranded. Tf he were to go to Germany, he would jhe murdered snnncr or Inter, as T-r,h----knecht was murdered, and as Eisner, was murdered He has, therefore, no choice but to stay here, and as he has no passport, he is only on what may be called the "tolerance list." _ _ . These, however, are but a few individual cases, selected from many more, all known to me personally. They only account for a few of the often down-at-heels, almost out-at-elho'vs individuals to be encountered daily in the streets of Swiss towns, and_ even villarry;. They the'", indeed. _ to sucli an extent that in Berne, Zurich, Geneva. Lausanne, and };asel there is literally no room to live, not even for the Swiss. There are, for instanco, 30.000 refractories and deserters of aU nationalities in Switzerland at the present time. Then there are the many : who for ono reason or another have I had to leave the homes and businesses which they built up for themselves in various belligerent countries. Not less than 20,P00 of these Swiss refugees have reached Switzerland in all, mainly coming from Russia, without money, and indeed with scarcely anything save the shabby clothes they were wearing. It must not for a moment be thought that i the maioritv of these peonlo were mere waiters, still less good-for-nothings; they were many of them merchants, i often wealthy, who never thought they . would live to see the 'liv when they i would be in want, still less th n t th© Swiss canton in which they belonged would have to onen a fund" to help to support them. The case of such people [ is cruel indeed. Tlie ex-Kings and the Archdukes and Princes of whom w© . have already far too many in Switzerland, seem to have money enough to in the country's handsomest private

bouses; they are not to be seen S ibout in shabby clothes, or norn c loots. Whoever else is in want * . *>ein to contrive to be very <-onifoi' ta >- • Nor do t'-» vnrmis clerks—whether Austrian. Hungarian, or German w i ire hanging about here, seem to la invthing essential. , Only for those stationed at ot ? s - " ration point aid !istoni"rr n tins, is it possible to realise devastation wrought by v. ar —not nv-'i e-v tji tract® of countrv destroyed and armies ; : Pn rrM/> r p-l. tho bimfn ';vr<? and pareors and homes which it ruins, some in o"o way, some in another, but all in such a wav that none b'lt the voungpst and etroneo't will ever be pb.e to richt tl'OTnco!v n s nr w int nns been wrecked. The truth is borne homo to everyone: war is tho scourge of numanity and of nations.