EXILES IN ENGLAND

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 May 1940, Page 2

EXILES IN ENGLAND

' ALL POSSESSIONS SHARED. LONDON, April 13. The war has made little difference to the Cotswold Bruderhof, a community settlement started in Wiltshire four years ago by German exiles who believed that only through the medium of voluntarily shared interest, work and worldly possessions could men and women come nearest to living a truly unselfish Christian and spiritually profitable life. The brotherhood when it began in Germany at the close of the last war, grew in numbers, and the settlements at Frankfurt and Liechtenstein throve and expanded. When Nazi-ism threatened the simple interests of the Bruderhof, some of them came to England to look for a locality where their work might be continued in security. On the outskirts of Ashton Keynes, a lovely Cotswold village, they’found what they were looking for. Here they bought a neglected farmhouse, rented 20 acres of neglected land. Within a year they | had purchased another 480 acres', had ploughed and sown it ■with crops, had built additional dwelling-houses and farm buildings and had sent for as many brotherhood as were able to leave Germany. Twelve months later the community included many Britons as well as Swiss, Swedes and Italians. A second estate is at Oaksey, five miles from the settlement at Ashton Keynes. To-day -the total membership of the two communities is over 250, including the children who run about the place babbling in two different tongues. One of the members explained this week that both estates were communally owned and communally directed by evening conferences which both men and women attend. Members appoint certain of their brethren to be their "ministers” and make all major decisions. No one has 1 a wage, and when a new’ member joins, his or her personal possessions are sold and the’ money used for the good of the community. The two communities are entirely self-supporting.