[104-10225-10000.pdf — page 121]
-18-The principal gap which exists at present between the various authorities and the refugees is over the question of assimilation, or, as it is usually described, "integration" and "adaptation". There is a natural feeling on the part of these agencies and authorities that in view of the real iction of emigration possibilities, the only alternative open to many of the refugees is to adapt themselves to their environment. The refugee, is, however, quite understandably reluctant to do so: He plans to return to his country when it is liberated "next year"; he is sure he will emigrate shortly; particularly in Germany, he may strongly dislike or distrust the local population. There is also of course the determining factor of employment possibilities -- one of the aspects of the refugee problem with which FECS cannot and need not directly concern itself.Indirectly, however, FECS can contribute to its resolution. For example, in Germany, the problem of national schools, which has been a sore point, suggests a suitable compromise. The refugees have struggled to maintain full-time national schools for their children, sometimes succeeding with IGFE and other external support, while the local and International authorities have insisted that refugee children attend German schools. The refugee must be made to understand that it is to his children's interest to allow them to adapt as long as the essential elements of national culture can be preserved. This requirement could be and in some instance is already being met by extra-curricular instruction in the national language, history and culture.In the same way the refugee must also be shown that by refusing to adapt, he may make of his national group an ingrown, despised and distrusted minority. If on the other hand, he shows willingness to adapt to the situation in which he finds himself, he is much more likely to obtain not only physical but psycho-logic 1 benefits in the form of broader practical experience, with the possibility that this experience may one day be of use to him in his own homeland. This is a difficult point which the mass of refugees will be reluctant to grasp. Some of their more intelligent leaders, however, -- the kind which FECS hopes to employ -- might be able to explain its importance. Also, the experience of one camp director in Trieste has proved that it is not impossible to get results through healthy national competitions; if the Rumanians paint their barracks, the Hungarians feel more obliged to paint theirs. While prob bly ineffective among the hardened older refugees, shame might successfully be used among new arrivals, as for example, "If you say you intend to return after liberation, what will you tell your friends that you did for Poland in emigration? That you helped create friends for Poland by keeping the neatest barracks in Germany -- or that you sat around a pigsty all day doing nothing? That you refused to take a job in construction company because it was beneath you, or that you helped to build a stronger and more prosperous wout to hasten the day of liberation?" arguments of this kind were not wholly without effect on strikers, and shirkers, during the war. Doubtless they have been tried by representatives of the voluntary agencies, etc., but FECS representatives should