GERMANY TO-DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27081, 16 May 1949, Page 6

GERMANY TO-DAY

DESPERATE CONDITIONS ACUTE CLOTHING SHORTAGE A brief outline of some of her experiences while travelling through Austria and Germany recently was given by Miss H. Iris Crooke, M.8.E., director-general of Red Cross VAD’s, in a broadcast address last night. She visited many hospitals, camps for displaced persons and private homes while on her visit. Clothing was desperately short and the Red Cross was not now receiving anything like the quantity of the war years. Miss Crooke said. People seemed to think that because the war had finished there was no further need for them to send parcels of clothing. She had seen a distribution of food and clothing at one town she had visited and it had been pathetic to see the way in which people reacted to the smallest gifts. One woman had received a pair of shoes that would have been used for gardening by women in New Zealand, but she had been glad to get them. British nationals living in Germany were not very well off, and they were pathetically eager to learn of news from Britain and other British countries. She had visited several of them during ber tour and they had asked many questions', about conditions in New Zealand, expressing surprise that rationing operated in the Dominion. Most of them were anxious to hear of the Royal Family. Although the devaluation of the mark had done much to improve the economic, position in Germany, the aged and sick were in desperate circumstances, Miss Crooke continued. Food and clothing were urgently needed for them, as well as proper medical care. As a result of the war she had seen many children left without parents. Many of them were the illegitimate children of soldiers and voung girls and had been found deserted in a starving condition in the streets. It was a big problem to look after them. Miss Crooke had also seen camps for older children, most of them resembling little old, men with then eyes sunk in hollows in their tired and wrinkled faces. Some of them were only 10 years of age and had been living among the bombed rubble and in the woods for long periods. Their rehabilitation was a big task. Miss Crooke concluded hei talk stating that New Zealanders should give a sympathetic welcome to the displaced persons who would be brought to the Dominion as immigrants. In t“. e past Norwegians, Swedes and emigrants from France had come to the country as immigrants, and they had given much to the culture of a young dominion. Although the displaced persons would have little worldly wealth they would bring a rich gift with them.