EVACUATION FROM GERMANY

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 17 May 1941, Page 5

EVACUATION FROM GERMANY

LARGE SCALE MOVEMENT I British Official Wirelessl Rugby, May 15. The fact that Royal Air Force raids J have compelled a large-scale evacua- , tion of children from north and west , Germany to Czechoslovakia, Poland and Austria is the subject of comment by | the “Manchester Guardian.” , “To judge from a report recently , made by Baldur von Srhirach, the parents at first hung back from sending their children away,” says the paper. “Then there was a storm of evacuation, particularly from Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin, the great towns of the west. (This was before the last series of heavy British raids.) “A considerable strain was put on the transport system. Some idea of the recent increase can be gathered from the figures of Polish W rthegau. At the end of December there were only 15,000 Berlin children there. By 20th February there were 100,300. “A Czech report says 150,000 refugees, both child and adult, have arrived in Bohemia and Moravia and 32 districts have been compulsorily evacuated by order of the Protector to make room for them. This figure has probably been doubled by now. “The general inference is that the German evacuation has been a hur j ried affair for which no adequate pr-.-j i aratiou was . It has »ov. Lce.il m-m—nt! the- •*' enormous tracts that can be counted j as ‘safe areas.’ All the same, it is a j side of the war that must have had | ai effect on the confidence of the or-1 dh.ary people.”