EUROPEAN REFUGEES

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXIX, Issue 3550, 6 May 1939, Page 7

EUROPEAN REFUGEES

ARRIVALS BY INCOMING LINERS RETICIENT CONCERNING THEIR EXPERIENCES Many Central and South Europeans, refugees from Nazi aggression, arrive "at Wellington by almost every overseas passenger liner. More than a score disembarked from the Awatea the other day; half a dozen more arrived the same afternoon by the Remuera. Many are Jews, but many others are simply lovers of peace and security and personal liberty. Mr S. Yida, formerly of Hungary, who arrive by the Remuera with his young wife, said that, because of the pressure being exerted by Germany and the deterioration in living conditions and in business activity, many of his countrymen were seeking new homes elsewhere The obstacles to leaving the country were great, because of the difficulty of obtaining a passport and of taking money out of the country. He and his wife after a year in London., had come to settle in New Zealand.

Two recent German arrivals by the Awatea said that they had been imprisoned by the Nazis and only released after many months without trial in concentration camps. They were reticient, however, concering their experiences and declined to allow their names to be published, for fear that their relatives in Germany would be victimised by way of reprisals. Indeed extreme reticience is usual with newcomers from Central Europe.

Many of the foreign immigrants prefix their names with the title of doctor, .but the number who actually contemplate entering the medical profession in New Zealand is, comparatively, slight. The title is used on the Continent to designate many holders of university degrees, other than medical, and many of the doctors who have arrived recently have been geologists, botanists, chemists and even in one case an architect.