Uprooted People

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29070, 5 December 1959, Page 3

Uprooted People

The High Tower of Refuge. The - inspiring story of refugee relief throughout the world. By Dr. Edgar H. S. Chandler. Odhams Press. 264 pp. Dr. Chandler is Director of the Refugee Service of the World Council of Churches. His work keeps him in constant and close touch with refugees the world over; and his book affords an impressive picture not only of their dire need, but also of the scale on which refugee relief is being attempted. To read, on one page, of 180,000 Hungarians in flight from their terror-stricken country, and on another, of 14,000 Green refugees in Athens, is to be given some idea of the magnitude of the refugee problem being tackled by the World Council of Churches. . To house, feed and clothe —if not to rehabilitate—these needy people, is a task that calls for a vast expenditure of money. “Housing, vocational training and emergency relief” writes Dr. Chandler—“are carried out by the World Council in Greece to the value of several hundred thousand dollars a year.” In the Middle East the World Council of Churches has a programme of re-settlement for Arab refugees. These number about a million who fled from Palestine in 1948, and are located in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and in the Gaza Strip. Many of them, according to the account given here, have lived now for 10 years in enforced idleness; and that, says Dr. Chandler, is the worst curse of their situation.

The post-war years witnessed the uprooting of millions of people in Germany, and the dimensions of this human upheaval are broadly indicated in the tenth chapter of Dr. Chandler’s book. He recalls that in 1950 and 1951 he had a direct hand in operations involving the emigration of 63,000 people from Germany to the United States. From Western Germany he carries the story of refugee relief to Austria, where, in 1951, there were 318,000 "homeless, unwanted people.” Next to be included in his survey is war-devastated Korea; and he devotes a chapter to the 700,000 refugees in Hong Kong. Case histories cited in the text fill out the picture of wretchedness and want and of the helping hand outstretched to offer needed sustenance.