Evening star., 1939-10-20
Evucuees
Continued From First Page.)
sword of war dangling above their
heads.

sword of war dangling above their
heads.
1000 Reserves on Guard.
Heinolas normal population of
1000 has tripled since the Finnish
authorities began evacuating the ex-
posed regions to the southeast. One
thousand reservist soldiers are also
stationed here and the village parks
are crowded with several hundred
horses, requisitioned for the army
from farmers throughout the coun-
tryside. At daybreak we found
Heinola seething with activity and
bullying with humanity-a graphic
prelude to the possible war which no
Finn wants or has sought.
Inside the big normal school build
ing 300 evacuees were beginning an
other dreary day waiting for politi-
clans to settle their fate There were
very old men. women and great
many children. All came from the
Russian frontier districts more than
100 miles away, all had slept upon
canvas spread upon the floors and
all possessed nothing except the
bundles of clothing which they had
hastily tied together before leaving
their homes. not knowing whether
they would ever see them again, all
except one woman who had pain
fully carried her sewing machine
with her, because she had lost
everything she owned in similar cir
cumstances during the last war and
if she could sew she might still hope
to earn food for her children.
A Public Dressing Room.
When we entered the first school,
room the children were being
dressed. One tow-headed boy was
reading his first grade primer and
girl was still sleeping in the mid
die of the floor with a pillow pulled
over her face to shut out the light.
Here 9-year-old child was combing
her grandmother's hair. Just be-
yond small baby lay in a market
basket and his little sister pushed
the basket back and forth on two
crude rollers which provided a crude
cradle.
Already refugee women were
sweeping and scrubbing floors, but
the rooms were so crowded that the
air reeked with human perspiration.
The school directress told us, how
ever, that conditions were already
much improved, since thousands of
evacuated families were now dis
tributed in farmhouseS in all the
surrouding country. Unless the dam
ger OF war were soon ended, she
said, thousands more would be dis
persed on the farmers. She also
told us that one mother had arrived
with baby only 8 days old. She
had served as godmother and the
child had been christened Raimo,
which means 'the grave one"
Nowhere did we see any weeping
or hear any complaints. Here, too,
homeless children were amazingly
quiet and patient, just as I had
found refugee children in Spain two
years ago. The helpless know how
to be silent. It is only their terrible
AlCAPACoSAlCSo WAAlCIA CllCS dlOuu-Uut
that, Of course, is not news.
"Greetings to America"
As we left one room several chill
dren called out something. My guide
told me what they had said
greetings to America" perhaps
that should be freely translated,
I'VE who are homeless and penniless
salute you" A tiny, gray-haired
woman in the 70s grasped my hand.
She was very frail, her eyes were
tortured: II hope God will give us
peace" she said.
On the bulletin board I read the
beautifully poetic names of the Fin
ish children, such as Raili, Lila,
kirsti, Hilkka and Kaarina. I then
noticed number of Russian names
and learned that one Russian
mother had arrived with five small
children from a frontier village
which is half Russian and half Fin
nish. Finland's freedom, it appeared,
was worth this much suffering to
them. As we left Heinola volunteer
girls who belong to Finland's re-
markably efficient Lolita" organiza-
ton were preparing breakfast for
the evacuees.
These scenes are being duplicated
through the vast central and west