The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1945-04-19
COMMENT ON WORLD
EVENTS


Final collapse of German resist
lance will bring an unprecedented NIL
grafton of from IL to Is million men,
women and children held as prisoners
|of war or labor conscripts and stu
Ipendous repatriation and recondition-
ling problem, says Herbert H. Leh-
man, UNRRA director general, who
lin the May issue of the American
Magazine gives for the first time de-
tails of plan designed to make their
Homecoming both orderly and joyful
The head of the United Nations Re-
lief and Rehabilitation Administration
Estimates that 100000 displaced
persons will start walking home as
soon as the Nazi army surrenders and
warns in signed article that "if we
do all within our power to organize
and direct this vast migration,
tragedy, pillage, disease and suffer
ling may be it's milestones."
Lehman expects that about half OF
the IL to Is million will present indi-
lvidual problems because of disease,
lack of identification, loss of family
land home. Of these, 100000 may
lprove to be stateless because he says,
l"many Jews driven from one country
to another by persecution will not
want to return home" and 'there are
political refugees in the neutral coun-
tries, even in the western hemisphere
who dare not go home lest they be
lpersecuted."
To avert an unorganized mass
movement of sicl1ly, starving and
poorly clothed people, many either
carrying or leading children, the
IUNRRA in collaboration with govern
ments of occupied countries and the
ISupreme Headquarters Of the Allied
Expeditionary Force has arranged fo1
ASSEMBLY centers to serve as clearing
house for migrants.
"For the stateless wayfarers, some
more permanent quarters will be es-
ltablished," says Lehman who indi-
Gates neither their nature nor loca-
ton.
| Each government cooperating in
the assembly setup, the UNRRA di-
rector states, pledges itself to take
care of nationals of the other govern
ments as they are found displaced
within it's borders when it is liberated
IUNRRA will have a liaison mission
iattached to each government
lUNRRA has already been requested
lby SHAEF to provide about 1000
trained persons to operate 400 as
lsembly centers for displaced persons
and refugees in Germany"
These assembly centers are set ul'
wherever facilities are found in liber-
lated areas as already has been done
Iby the American army in France un-
der supervision of G-5,, the Civil-af-
fairs division of SHAEF.
"In the assembly centers the dis
placed will be registered, given ply
Isieal examination, freed of vermin
and provided with post cards on which
Ito send a limited message to their
Relatives at home," Lehman writes
l"Then they will be screened by Army
Intelligence to weed out spies
lsaboteurs, and others in the service
| of a possible Nazi underground. A
second screening will be given at the
border of the country into which they
are going.
at is probable that the assembly
camps will be cleared by priority
Prisoners of war will be cleared first
Our own American prisoners of wal
will be taken care of by the Ameri-
can army, British prisoners by the
British army.
"Skilled labor and professional mer
|probably will be cleared next if THEN
nations are in need of their services
| 1t is possible again that women ano
children or mothers with babies viii
be moved first. These things must be
determined by the needs and exigen-
cies of the moment"
|