HAVEN TO WOUNDED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 102, 27 October 1938, Page 5

HAVEN TO WOUNDED

RUSSIA AND SPANISH WAR

With the co-operation of the Soviet Government, the Soviet trade unions have offered a permanent refuge for some of the 600 German and Italian wounded who are in France from the International Brigades of the Spanish Loyalist Army, says a Paris message to the "New York Times." About twenty-five of these wounded have already gone to the Soviet Union, while others are preparing to go. Finding a haven for these wounded men, who of course, cannot return to their own countries, has been one of the most perplexing problems of the French Leftist committees that are aiding them. The French Government, already sorely beset by the Spanish refugee problem, likewise has a vital interest in the situation. Some of the French Leftist trade unions, such as the metal workers, for example, are caring for several hundred wounded members of International Brigades in their own rest homes. The metal workers, building trades, and some other unions have also placed wounded brigade members, on their job-preference lists, thus aggravating many union members who feel that there are not enough jobs to go around. About 350 wounded veterans, including many Americans, are scheduled to arrive in Paris from Loyalist Spain for hospitalisation and eventual repatriation to various foreign countries. Thus new contingent will bring to a total of about 1800 the number of foreign wounded from the International Brigades brought here in two months. Among them are about 400 Americans. OTHERS ARE WAITING. Officials of a committee that is assist- j ing the men stated that hundreds of! additional wounded foreign soldiers are awaiting evacuation from Loyalist Spain and that virtually all of them will be brought here. Hundreds of others have been assisted in Paris and other parts of France since the autumn of 1936. The principal agency extending this help now is a committee to aid the wounded and mutilated. Directed by two former members of the International Brigades, Maurice Lampe and Honore Galli, both French, it was organised on June 1 by the Committee to Aid Republican Spain, a French Leftist group. The American and Canadian wounded are being looked after principally by the Paris office and by the Friends of the Lincoln-Washington Battalion. This office also is affiliated with other committees. David Ameriglio, a naturalised American born of SpanishJewish parents in Greece, is its director. More than 100 American wounded have been given medical care and transportation home by still another group, the emergency committee, composed of Americans residing in Paris. American deserters from the brigades are likewise helped by this committee.