FRENCH VICTIMS OP THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 286, 22 August 1918, Page 5

FRENCH VICTIMS OP THE WAR

About- a year ago the Germans began to send back to France, through Switzerland, hundreds of thousands of French people whom, with all their characteristic brutality, they had deported firm' the portions of Northern France which they occupy. ■ • Up to the end of March last some 300,000 persons had thus boon repatriated. Tho Germans sent onjy tho aged, the sick, the infirm, and the little children. They retained, for their own purposes— which amount'to virtual slavery—the lads, the young girls, and the able-bodied men and women. Those who came back bore the marks of three years of treatment which can bo better imagined than described. The little children' were affected by skin diseases to an extent that rendered special cleansing and curative courses before they could bo allowed to re-enter French civil life..

To receive and handle this pitiful stream of- humanity, the French, with their ' customary thoroughness and promptness, organised "Le Hccours aus Kepa-tries," with headquarters at 2 Boulevard des. Beiges, Lyons, and we have received from this society a book containing photographs and descriptions o; its work. It is a document which should.bo in the hands of every pacifist. It is but further evidence in condemnation of tho human brutes who ravaged Belgium and Franco. Agents of the eociety receive the repatriated people at Zurich, and at Bvian the wo/k of organisation, identification, and' classification commences. There can be nothing moro pitiful than thp condition of theso unfortunates. All have lost their homes and their wordly possessions, and nearly all have been torn > away from parents, children, husbands, or wives. Tho _ warm-hearted French greatly value their domestic associations, but there is here hardly a family complete. There are thousands of children, who .have been separated from their parents, and who cannot be identified. Tho society finds relations for many of them, but many are hopelessly lost, and their beloved Franco must -in future bo their foster-mother. A special department of tho society is constantly engaged on tho work of establishing communication between the "rcpatriateds" and their relations and friends.

The society's organisation includes great resthouses, orphannges,. and hospitals. Among tho latter is u large hospital maintained by Now Zealand, and photographs of it are reproduced. The stream of returning peoplo is filtered through these institutions, and distributed all over Franco. The eociety directs its appeal for funds to all Allied peoples who have not experienced these horrors'of the war.