REFUGEES ARRIVE

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4800, 21 June 1939, Page 2

REFUGEES ARRIVE

BOUND FOR SYDNEY. MANY WAITING IN CUBA. Obviously well pleased to be thousands of miles away from the centres of strife and anxiety in the Old World, two families of refugees from Central Europe, including a little boy, arrived at Wellington by the Tamaroa on Friday afternoon, having joined the ship at Balboa, in the Panama Canal zone.

As the Tamaroa was manoeuvring up to her berth they caught sight of the red funnels and green hull of the Awatea. They had heard of the Awatea, and when they were told that the ship they were looking at was the Awatea, the faces of the adults were lit with smiles, for she is the ship which is to take them on to Sydney, whither they are booked. There were, said one of the men, about 100 to 150 refugees at Balboa when they were there. Many refugees from Europe had gone to Cuba in the West Indies in the hope of getting on the quota which would enable them to go to America. He estimated that there were about 6000 refugees in Cuba, most of whom would have to wait about a year before they would be allowed into the United States. The man said he had been engaged in the timber business for 40 years. He was going to Port Kembla, where he had a nephew.