Displaced Persons Sent To Coast For Sawmill Work

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 August 1949, Page 4

Displaced Persons Sent To Coast For Sawmill Work

A new life, with a pew job, will be opened up for four displaced persons from Europe when they arrive in Greymouth by tomorrow afternoon’s express. They comprise the first batch of displaced persons to be sent to the Coast and for the past two months, since their arrival in New Zealand from overseas, they have been going’ through the “primer” classes in the New Zealand language and way of life at the Pahiatua camp. Along with fellow arrivals, they learned these things before being allocated to a job, which is really the final stage in what might be termed the “absorption” process. Tomorrow's party comprises two married couples, one with one child and the other with two children, and two single men. All the menfolk are experienced axemen and they will be sent south to Ross to be employed in sawmill work in that district. They will be a help in relieving the pressure at mills caused by the shortage of labour, and it is possible that this party may be the forerunner of other parties of displaced persons for the Coast. The party originally came from Central Europe and the Baltic, one of the members being a Lithuanian. The married couples will make their homes at Ross and the two single men will live at the mill at which ’they will be employed. The readjustment process, will be far from finished for the new settlers when they take up their new employment, or at least that will be the case with most displaced persons who have arrived in the Dominion. At the Pahiatua displaced persons’ camp, language has been a formidable problem. Daily instruction has been given in elementary English, but there are many difficulties. For instance, one class was made up of persons who could neither read nor write even in their own language. Others in the camp could write only in Russian script. •Tomorrow’s party will be met by officers of the Greymouth branch of the Department of Labour and Employment. , ' Much interest has been aroused at Ross in the newcomers’ arrival. The Ross branch of the Women’s Institute, and religious organisations and citizens in the district have been very helpful in their efforts to aid the displaced persons to settle down comfortably in their new environment.