PROBLEM IN PROSPECT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 December 1943, Page 4

PROBLEM IN PROSPECT

HOME FOR “LITTLE LAVALS & QUISLINGS.” DISOWNED BY THEIR OWN PEOPLE. The “little Lavals and Quislings” whose home people will have none of them after the war promise to provide an additional complication in the al-ready-involved problem of refugee disposition, the United States Foreign Policy Association said recently. “The leading collaborators will probably be disposed of by the United Nations or their own irate nationals,” the report said, “but the rank and file of local Fascists—the little Lavals and Quislings who are known only in their own communities —may be punished by being rendered homeless.”. The survey, prepared by Winifred N. Hadsel of the privately financed research organisation’s staff, also pointed out that “as World War II enters its fifth year, Axis persecutions have uprooted at least 16,000,000 people in Europe alone, and may affect hundreds of thousands more in the months ahead.’’ Most of the prisoners of war, fugitives from bombings, forced labourers in Nazi industries, evacuees from districts annexed by Axis nations, and other displaced peoples may be expected to join spontaneous mass movements back to their homes, the association reported. But it asserted that “tens or hundreds of thousands will probably be unable to return because of technical, psychological, or economic barriers.” “Others,” the report continued, may be rejected by their former governments or communities because of their war time records —the men and women who volunteered to work or fight for the Nazis, the war prisoners of Axis countries whose new regimes are not enthusiastic about the return of potential political opponents.” . The homeless left after repatriation of those who can or will go home, the Association reported, will constitute a problem beyond the capacity of private organisation and financing. It concluded: “What is required, therefore, is a collective effort of the type that only the great powers acting jointly, or an international organisation, would be capable of taking.”