The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1921-04-08
ABOUT NEAR EAST
American Charity Great Aid to
Orphans in Syria.
Reports to Headquarters in n.
Y. Tell of Work.

Among the information which is
sent out from the headquarters of the
Near East Relief workers are many
accounts of specific conditions and
cases which the American peoples
remedy.
The changes that American charity
has worked in the lives of the war
orphans in Syria, is described by Miss
Josephine Huse. of Grand Island, Neb.,
a Near East Relief worker stationed
in Sidon, not far from Beirut, in a
report to Charles V. Vickery, general
secretary of the relief Orga MIA ton, at
national headquarters in New York.
Located on the beach just north of
the old Crusader castle in Sidon, the
farfamed city of the ancient Phoeni-
clans. are a group of flat-topped.
white-washed stone buildings which
house three hunderd homeless girls
she says. Here in this historic spot,
with the blue Mediterranean stretch
ing away to the western horizon and
the snow-ca pped Lebanons rising to
the east, the generosity of the Ameri-
can people is making it possible to
cure hundreds of sick children, to edu-
cate them and to train them for useful
occupation.
Driftwood of Humanity
These children are the driftwood
of humanity, washed ashore by the
flood of suffering which overwhelmed
Syria for six terrible years during the
great war and which carried off over
one-third of her population.
They have come to the Near East
Relief orphanage indescribably dirty
and ragged or have been picked up
by relief workers who have found
them begging on the streets. their
emaciated bodies covered with sores
and filth.
Their stories are tales of misery.
One of them, Beheeya Assad, age
seven, lost father, mother, two broth
ers and a sister from typhus during
| the war. For a year Beheeya wan
dered from village to village begging
from door to door for crust of bread,
and eating grass from the fields
Nothing Heard From Father.
I'm 1915 Nizha Stephan's father
went away to the war. Since then
nothing has been heard from him.
| Nizha's mother and two little broth
ers died of sickness and privation two
years later, and her older brother
| who had been imprisoned for a time
| for stealing food for them, died six
| monts later. Left alone Nizha lived
on the mill where few rags on the
dirty floor in dark corner served for
| her bed. She helped to grind flour
and ran errands for the miller until
| ing homeless waits to the orphanage
found her, nearly blinded by ira
choma, and brought her to the Near
| East orphanage.
marie Lufti's father. who was a
printer, died when she was three years
| old leaving her mother a small house
| and garden with mulberry and orange
| trees. During the war. typhus raw
| aged the village and claimed among
| its victims her mother, her grand
parents, four sisters and an aunt. The
! property was sold to pay debts which
| had piled up since the fathers death,
| and Marie and a younger sister Were
| left alone and homeless. She worked
] at odd jobs. picking olives, grinding
| flour. carrying bread to and from the
| public ovens. and thus earning a little
| food which she shared with her sister
who was too frail to work. Then
| the sister died. Marie says Now 1
| have plenty to eat and a good clean
| bed while before l would almost die
| from hunger and nobody would give
| me a piece of bread