AIDING REFUGEES
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym, and the latter must be accompanied by the name and address of the author, which will be treated as confidential.—Ed. THE SPECTATOR] [To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR] StR,—Your leading article, "Suppliants for Refuge," will be specially welcomed by those who have been trying to help refugees from Greater Germany to find even temporary asylum in this country. It may interest your readers to know exactly what is being demanded of these would-be helpers.
I came into contact, through no personal relationship, with S 22-year-old Jew from Vienna, who wrote to ask me if I would help him get out of Germany. I replied that I would if I could. Since his first letter to me he has been thrown into Dachau, and I have received the most moving appeals from his mother to obtain a permit for him to enter England, as she had been told that only in the event of her obtaining such a permit would he be released.
I put the case before the German Jewish Aid Committee, stating that I was prepared to do what I understood to be necessary, i.e., to ensure by promising to house, feed and clothe him, that he would never fall upon the rates. After some time had elapsed, I received in reply a form to fill up together with a copy of the guarantee form which, if everything was con- sidered satisfactory, I should be called upon to sign. The obligations which I was to be called upon to assume were such as no responsible person could possibly undertake, unless he were an extremely wealthy man with few responsibilities.
Apart from undertaking responsibility for the refugee's maintenance in this country, for which I was prepared, I had to undertake the cost of bringing him to England. If this was just a matter of the fare, I would certainly undertake it, but for all I knew I might be making myself responsible for some unnamed ransom payment in the form of German emigration dues. Then I was to be responsible too for the entire cost of the refugee's eventual further emigration; I should presumably have no control of the country to which he was to be sent nor the cost of settling him in whichever country might be selected. Furthermore, I had to guarantee that I would reimburse the Central British Fund for any expenses in which it might be involved on behalf of the refugee in question. How many of your readers could assume indefinite obligations of this character ?
• Not content with that, it was emphasised that I must produce documentary evidence that arrangements for the refugee's further emigration were actually in progress.
Conscious that I was prolonging the stay of this boy in the concentration camp, I found myself compelled to return an unsatisfactory reply. I had thought that by offering hospitality I was contributing to the world-wide effort that is required to help these unfortunate people. I understood that the committees set up for the purpose were going to organise training camps and arrange for the eventual settle- ment of at any rate the able-bodied young men overseas. I thought that the object of the huge funds being collected was to pay for such eventual settlement. I did not know that these funds required to be reimbursed for their expenditure on behalf of the refugees in whose cause they have been sub- scribed. The effect of the guarantee forms with which I was confronted as the only means of helping the case in which I have become interested, was to throw the whole onus of maintenance, finance and settlement back on to the individual ; whereas the purport of every speech and article on the subject has been to stress the need for collective effort.
When I put these points to the Aid Committee, they ex- pressed sympathy but said that the nature of the guarantee was insisted on by the Home Office who would not accept any guarantee with a limit either as to the period of hospitality or as to the amount of the financial obligation. I made enquiries of the Society of Friends who are working ener- getically in the same cause, only to be confronted with the same impossible forms. Surely there is something wrong if both offers of hospitality and financial aid are available but their proper cohesion is prevented ?
May I refer to another direction in which something will have to be done if this country is going—not only to take its share of the world-wide effort required—but merely to avail itself of the help that has already been offered. Each of my letters to the Aid Committee has gone unanswered for a week. Now I do not want for a monent to criticise those who are carrying on this voluntary work ; one knows how selflessly these people give themselves—one of my letters bore Sunday's date—and what formidable obstacles they find themselves up against. Obviously a far more highly developed organisation is required. The mere number of applications received cannot be accepted either as an explanation or excuse for the tardy treatment of many cases hovering between life and death. Their very number demands that some more energetic action be taken. The helpers are at call, the funds already available.
The particular case in which I have become interested has happily progressed, a permanent guarantor, a relation of the refugee concerned, having been found in the United States. I have been able to submit to the British Committee a photographic copy of the American affidavit which has in turn justified me in giving the unconditional guarantee which the Home Office requires to cover his temporary stay in this country pending the granting of the American visa. However, another week has elapsed and now I have received a letter advising me that I must obtain a photographic copy of the American quota number. I have cabled to the boy's parents in Vienna for this, but doubtless when it comes there will be further needless delays in respect of a case which now from the official point of view could go through immediately. Meanwhile the object of all this correspondence languishes— if that be the right word—in Dachau.—Yours faithfully,
London, S.W.
R. W. HILL.
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