REFUGE TRAIN

Opotiki News, Volume III, Issue 316, 27 September 1940, Page 4

REFUGE TRAIN

Although refugees must be sheltered, England must be protected from .fifth columnists who may try and creep in with the people they are trying to kill. Too Tired to Eat The porters are helping volunteer workers pass cups of coffee and tea over the heads of the crowd. “Won’t you try and eat a biscuit?” one coaxes. “A nice cup of tea now?” He is bending over a little girl. A child’s face should never look as drawn as hers. Khe smiles politely. “Non, merci,” she says. She looks as if she feels she must humour the man, who seems so much younger Gian she. Her mother is carrying a six-months-old baby. “There is, perhaps, some milk?” There is—at the end of the platform, which, by now, is so covered with people who have sunk down where they were standing that it is almost impossible to get to the canteen. Terrible Tears In the centre, a tall woman with a shawl drawn over her black hair, is leaning against a pillar. She is crying silently. The tears are running down her face, washing away the dust and grime in the furrows. “My babies, my babies,”-she says softly. “One is in hospital. I had to leave her behind. She is badly wounded. My son is dead.” A faint ray of light from the darkened bulb over her head shines on her tears.

What is there to say to her? Niobe, weeping for her children. Here they are. It is early morning. Dawn is just beginning to make the blue lights, which are all there is to lighten the station’s cavelike darkness, look even dimmer. All Their Possessions The refugees are clinging to their bundles and bulging, battered suitcases. Naturally—they hold all their worldly possessions. Some of these people have been trying to reach safety for six days and nights. A family of 15 trudged along France’s long, straight roads for 240 miles. Three of them reached the port. Some of the oldej - women are so muffled in shawls and blankets that it is almost impossible to" distinguish them from the piled bundles on the platform. They are all wearWill she eat something?” No. She shakes her head, tries to smile. Some coffee? Oh, yes, some coffee. She looks like a statue. Her body, has fallen into lines of grief. Classiclines. Suddenly she becomes conscious that she is weeping. Her hands go up to her face and tears trickle through her fingers.

~ SAFETY IN ENGLAND CHILDREN FROM ; EUROPE, VICTIMS OF BLITZKREIG DOMINIONS OFFER AID Pitiful streams of homeless /victims of inhuman cruelty have been pouring into _ England for months, but since the invasion of Holland, Belguim and France it has assumed overwhelming proportions. -

Organisations in London, ancl previously in Paris; have been working, since the beginning of the war, to provide food and shelter for the refugees, but the more recent problem of the evacuation of their own children from danger zonesi has complicated the problem for the authorities.

In London a great deal of the work has been taken over by the Women’s Voluntary Services, under the leadership of the Dowager Marchioness of Reading. Their sewing parties spent the whole of one •week-end recently making adequate ing black shawls and blankets which were once white and well washed. Suddenly a bundle of blankets stirs.

The old lady stands up and rallies a group of about a dozen people who are standing round her. She organises things. Counts heads and bundles. Then, with a smile and a bow to the interpreter, tells him that her family is ready. This old lady of 80 leads her sons and daughters and grandchildren off with as gracious an air as if she were going to a fete. She.alone has kept the family together since they left Liege. Only Life Is Left Two Red Cross nurses prefes through the crowd. They are propping up an old woman who is as bent as a witch in her black shawl. She has no possessions at all. No luggage. Nothing. Like the others, she has walked and stumbled along the roads and sheltered behind slender trees when the German bombers came over.

She still has her life. She, too, smiles. “Merci, merci, merci,” she says.

it is 4 a.m. now—an hour since the train came in. The platform is clear. Buses and'ambulances have gone. It is almost light. The mobile canteen in the centre of the platform looks as if a swarm of locusts had descended on it. There is nothing left, but —thank heaven —all the washing-up is finished.

The next train is due at 6.12 a.m. Within two hours another 600 refugees must be fed.

black-out curtains for the 1500 empty houses which had been commandeered.

Now that the Dominions have decided to share the responsibility lor the safety of refugee and evacuee children from the war zones the following description of a refugee train arriving at Paddington station, London, is of special interest. Many people on the platform have been waiting for three hours. Some of them have been here for six hours, some for nine, but when the train draws in at last no one makes any move. Nobody, in fact, seems to notice it. There is no movement from inside the train. The 3 a.ni. quiet of 'the station is so deep, and the train so protectively blacked-out, “oat minutes pass before police and porters open the doors and let a feeble light stream out on the platform. Sleep Like Death. There—lying on the floor—huddled on the seats—are people. Bodies. Six hundred of them, Men, with heads pillowed on their rolledup coats. Women, with shawl-cov-ered heads falling back against the walls. Their mouths a little open in the pathetic defencelessness of deep sleep. Children, as lost as their parents in a sleep that seems like death.

The refugee train has arrived at Paddington, and none of the refugees know. A day or two ago, an interpreter who has been on duty almost continuously since the exodus from Belgium and Holland began, told me that the refugees were quiet.

. At the time it seemed strange that he should add, “Unnaturally quiet. That is almost the worst thing about it.” These refugees, too, are quiet. They stumble out on the platform —• not into • bright, welcoming lights, but into the confusing half-light of a country whose Prime Minister has said : “We must expect that as soon as stability has been reached on the Western Front, the bulk of that force which gashed Holland into ruin and smoke in a few days will be turned on us.”

The children’s faces are like masks. '

Police form a cordon along the platform. There are more outside.