Uncertain Fate Of Displaced Persons

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 284, 30 August 1945, Page 6

Uncertain Fate Of Displaced Persons

Facts relating to the problem of the Displaced Persons—that is, the foreign forced labourers imported by the Germans during the war—continue to trickle in, but there has been no comprehensive statement, and, apparently, no official ruling on one or two very important points (writes George Orwell in the “Observer,” London).

It Ik very much to be hoped that thc relevant facts will be published in the fairly near future. Otherwise a valuable sociological opportunity may be missed, and decisions may lie taken which public opinion in the United States and Britain would not tolerate if it knew the facts.

UNRRA is now at work in 230 camps in Western Germany, and the military authorities in a further number of camps unspecified, on the registration of these uprooted people. They are known to number some 4.500,000 in Germany alone. According to present registrations, the bulk of this figure is made up of 1,500,000 Russians, 1,200,000 Frenchmen, and 61)0,000 Poles. There were about 100,000 Belgians—now nearly all repatriated—and theer are some 100,000 Dutchmen, with smaller groups of Yugoslavs, Czechs, Scandinavians, and Greeks. By last week 1.500.000 had been registered,' medically examined and repatriated. Of the rest the majority are living under the care of the Military Government, which feeds them as best ti can, and in some cases employs. them at roadmending aud similar jobs. Great numbers, however, have refused to be

rounded up and have endeavoured to walk home, or have simply lived on the countryside by begging and stealing. Others, though probably not many, have remained on the farms where they were working before the Allied invasion. At the beginning most of the Displaced Persons welcomed their liberators with enormous enthusiasm, but this has been somewhat damped by the unavoidable delays in repatriation and the growing food shortage. It had been laid down in advance that in the matter of food supply the Army canto first, the Displaced Persons second, and the Germans third; but in practice it is impossible to allow the Germans to starve, and in Some areas the point has already been reached where it is necessary to reduce the rations of the Displaced Persons in order to keep those of the Germans up to subsistence level. It is easy to imagine the ill-feeling that this causes, aud in Americancontrolled areas it is not made better by the wastage of food which anyone in contact with the troops can observe for himself.

Meanwhile, various ' extremely interesting facts about the. Displaced Persons have come to light. To begin with, the term "slave labour,” habitually used in the British Press, is misleading. Some of these people—it might even be possible to determine the number with reasonable accuracy—were volunteers, and the rest, though they could be described as slaves in the sense that they were flported against their will, do not seem in most cases to have been badly treated. Those employed on factory work lived in encampments in semi-prison conditions, but those employed on the land, usually on small farms.’ where all the younger menfolk were away at the war, seem to have fared reasonably-well. In many eases they were not. only paid wages but were enrolled in the German workers insurance scheme, and all observers agree that as a whole the displaced persons have been well fed. We can make only the vaguest guess as to how many of these people changed sides on ideological' grounds, how many were mere adventurers, and how many were ignorant peasants to whom serving in one army was very like serving in another. Clearly this whole subject needs investigating for the sake of the light it may cast on the changes now occurring in the structure of nationalism. But the investigation must be made within the next few months or the data will have vanished. . , One point that does not seem to have been decided —or at least, no authoritative pronouncement has been made is whether u displaced person who does not wish to go home is obliged to do So. The people mos't iifToctcd here are the Poles It is known that great numbers of Poles, specially from eastern Poland, want to remain abroad. It the Government, of the U.S.S.R, decides that those of them, who are now technical,y Soviet, citizens must, return, will the British and American Governments feel obliged to repatriate them? Quite obviously this question should not be decided without letting the British and American peoples understand what is happening. Moreover, If the 1 oles and others who prefer to remain abroad are allowed to do so, what exactly is their status to be?