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Student Refugees

An Answer to Student Fatalism.

Are you feeling that the war spells disaster to all our efforts for world peace? Is it making you feel defeated and fatalistic and deeply sceptical and cynical about the possibility of ever achieving "brotherhood among the nations? If so, here are some challenging facts about the way in which students in 1914-1918 were able to maintain and strengthen their unity with students from other countries, even from countries opposed to themselves in war.

We students in New Zealand have little conception of the acute suffering that war brings to countless thousands of students in Europe and the Far East. There are at present some 1800 Polish students in the internment camps of Hungary and Roumania, and 3000 in Lithuania, These students are without adequate clothing, shoes or blankets, and a large proportion are actually starving. At best, they are doomed to months and possibly years of the most soul-destroying inertia and despair. There have been many cases of actual starvation and suicide. There are some 400 Spanish students in the refugee camps in the South of France, whom the French Government is no longer able to help and who are completely destitute and penniless. From Belgium, Holland, Norway and France hundreds of men and women students are seeking refuge in England or are faced with starvation in their own countries. They are cut off from all financial support from their homes, and many brilliant students have had their careers blasted, and have no homes to return to, either now or after the war. In China thousands of students have been carrying on bravely for three years in make-shift Universities, striving to train themselves for leadership in their nation. Hundreds of these students are now suffering from deficiency diseases due to the acute lack of food; they are struggling on in miserable living quarters and in emergency Universities where there is next to no equipment and very few books.

Then there are those students who have felt it their duty to give up their studies and enlist, and who now find themselves prisoners of war, with no means of occupying the long days of detention. Books are urgently needed for these men if they are to be saved from mental and moral degeneration.

So one could go on enumerating present sufferings. Nor should we be blind to the desperate need of repatriated and home less students in the post-war years. Is there anything we can do to demonstrate our sympathy and bring relief to these fellow students in their tragic situation?

Out of the need of 1914-1918 was born an organisation known as the International Student Service. The record of its service in the last war is convincing proof of the fact that vital links between countries can be maintained even during war. Here are some facts about its work. In U.S.A. between 1917-1925, the American students responded so whole-heartedly to the needs of the European students that they raised no less than 7,170,000 dollars. Every college, every Professor, and every student in America joined in this effort, and the funds raised were distributed by I. S. S. secretaries to needy students in every country involved in the war. What more practical expression could there be of the will to peace and unity, which so many of us theorise about but seldom demons rate in actual living? A plea for £1000 was issued in 1920 to several countries, including New Zealand, for help for destitute Austrian students. In a few weeks Dutch students alone had sent clothing and food-stuffs to the value of £3000. Through the efforts of 'neutral' secretaries of the I.S.S. (Dutch, Danish, Swiss, and, till 1917, American) new hope and purpose was brought into the prison camps page break of France, Germany and England, where before men had been the prey of despair, mental anguish and moral degradation. Huts Were built where every sort of education went on. Many prison camps "became miniature Universities and Schools of Arts and Crafts, organised by the professors and students among the prisoners. In France and Germany at least, towards the end of the war, arrangements were made where by prisoners of war could sit for various examinations in connection with the educational systems of their own countries, end University students were supplied with the books they needed to carry on their interrupted courses.

Today, I.S.S. is appealing again for our help, and already the students of America are responding willingly to the call. In a three weeks' tour of American colleges Robert Mackie, General Secretary of the World Student Christian Federation (now merged with I.S.S. for purposes of student relief), raised no less than 45,000 dollars. I.S.S. is facing greater difficulties in the present war, owing to the number of countries involved, and the ever-diminishing number of countries which can give help. Australia is responding to the appeal, and in New Zealand the N.Z.U.S.A. and the N.Z.S.C.M. have agreed to form a joint committee, situated in Christchurch, to forward throughout the Dominion this practical demonstration of brotherhood with students of war-ridden countries. The results of any sacrifice we make will be far-reaching, for we shall not only [unclear: be meeting] the physical needs of our fellow-students in other lands, but will be laying the foundations of a rich understanding based on the real values of goodwill and gratitude. In supporting any appeal the New Zealand I.S.S. Committee may make, is a chance for the practical action many have been looking for, and here is a job in which we can all combine, Pacifist and non-Pacifist Socialist and Conservative, Christian and Atheist, and the plain perplexed average student who does not profess any -isms but would give anything to be able to do something!

S. M. Williams.