USEFUL IN BRITAIN

Greymouth Evening Star, 19 September 1940, Page 8

USEFUL IN BRITAIN

INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE. '4 LONDON, August 3. At a wedding at Lisbon, Portugal, this week, the marriage service was read in Esperanto. The bride was Marie Meredith Kraus, 22-year-old German girl and Esperanto expert who left her country because of the Nazis’ anti-Catholic policy. „ She went to Belgium and joined the Red Cross there as a nurse. '• The bridegroom was another Esperanto enthusiast, John Castle Coleman, 28-y.ear-old British film actor, 'who was in Hollywood completing an Esperantist film. . : • The film finished, Coleman sailed for Europe and. found Marie in the battle zone. They did. Red Cross work together and also organised an Esperantist information bureau 1 for refugees. When the Western Front collapsed the two retreated with the _ French troops, and crossed the Spanish frontier. Delegates from numerous Esperantists societies attended their marriage. Esperanto is proving increasingly useful in Britain, now that so many soldiers "and sailors of different nationalities are there. The joint headquarters of the International Esperanto League and the British Esperanto Association at Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, are regularly receiving requests from French, Czech, Polish, Qutch and Norwegian serving men asking to be put in touch with Esperanto-speaking members of the British forces.