MOST REFUGEES COME TO STAY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 257, 26 May 1944, Page 12

MOST REFUGEES COME TO STAY

Are We Helping Them ?

Written for "The Listener" by

TAMATEA

VER since the war started, refugees have been the subject of public discussion. But few people really know the facts sufficiently well to form sound judgments, Here are some facts-and judgments too-presented hy a New Zealander who must for special reasons remain anonymous, but who has been in a position to see more of refugees than most of us. Though we do not accept some of his conclusions, or feel as strongly about any of them as he does, it is a duty to our readers to give them publicity.

some hundreds of thousands of Jews were pushed out of Hitler’s Europe. By various sorts of miracles just under 900 of them (so the immigration figures say) acquired a Permit to Enter New Zealand -one of the highest prizes in the emigration lottery. 1933 and 1941 About 600 refugees came here on German passports, from Germany or Austria, so they are now "enemy aliens"; the same applies to smaller groups from Hungary and other enemy countries, In

1941 the Nazi Government deprived all refugees of their civil rights, so our enemy aliens would now be more popularly described as "stateless.’’ Czechoslovakians and Poles are of course merely "aliens" and retain their national status. One interesting fact about refugees that. _is sometimes misunderstood: whether they come from Vienna, Warsaw, or Bucharest, their native language is almost invariably German. For German, besides being the national language

of the Teuton, is also the favourite language of the educated Jew throughout Central and Eastern Europe. A Jewish Problem Nearly all our refugees are Jewish or part-Jewish according to the Nazi definition, only that is a freak definition based on racial mysticism, Perhaps twothirds of them are Jews in our loose but more reasonable use of the word. Take the case of a man who thought he was a full German, until a Gestapo search of birth certificates revealed to his horrified eyes a forgotten grandmother named Levi! Only a believer in

the blood-myth could call him Jewish. Some refugees are needlessly sensitive on this subject, because they do not understand our pioneer downrightness that does not give a damn for grandparents anyway, provided a man does the decent thing. Many Jewish refugees have also drifted away from the faith of their fathers to live a purely secular life, for in the last few decades the synagogue has had just as many empty pews as the church. So the refugee problem is not idtntical with the Jewish problem, but is different enough to be treated on its own merits. Character In the early days we used to be sentimental about refugees, but since then many of them have shown themselves decidedly capable of looking after their own interests. Instead of looking for heroes or villains, we might be wiser to look at them with more understanding of human frailty, with Falstaff’s "Tush, man, mortal men!" Certainly they are not all as-ragged as Falstaff’s recruits. In fact, two or perhaps three of them (you can guess the names for yourself) (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) are men of international reputation in their respective fields. There are also a hundred or so people of capacity and character who would be a real asset to any country. Then down at the tail-end there are a few score who will never make decent citizens of any country. And in between are all the other hundreds of ordinary people who take their colour and character from their social environment. Flotsam, and mortal men, yes-but capable ot becoming good New Zealanders in a gerieration or two. Occupations The professional men, numbering probably over 100, have had a mixed reception here. The medical practitioners are probably the most numerous and have received most public criticism; the trouble is that the best qualified critics, their medical confréres, are not altogether disinterested in the matter. But even the layman knows that the pre-war medical faculties of Berlin, Munich, and Vienna were excelled nowhere in the world. Refugee doctors are doing good work, there will still be room for them after the war, and the outsider is inclined to limit his criticism to the "tail" of the team, who do not always appear to realise what exceptionally high ethical standards are demanded of the profession in British countries. On the other hand, Europe has nothing to teach us in dentistry, and the score or so of refugee dentists have had a good deal to learn about American methods since their arrival in this dentists’ paradise. Most of the engineers and architects have found work; some have made a real contribution; a few are misfits. A dozen or so representatives of the legal profession have found no opening at all and have had to seek other avenues. Accountants have found employmentonly just. Some refugees had thought of becoming farmers, but only a score or two surmounted the difficulties of access to the land; they all,seem to be moderately successful. Considering the historical trading role of the Jews, it is surprising that very few refugees are in business: less than a dozen in the import and export trade, and no more than a dozen small retailers. (No doubt the hand of Government is to be seen in this.) The enterprising refugee has turned to smallscale manufacture, and some dozens of one-man factories are turning out various lines in short supply, many of which are non-essential, but few of which have ever been manufactured in the Dominion before. Only three or four factories are known to employ labour. The happiest refugee is the shop or factory employee. He has usually experienced unemployment in Europe, and he relishes the opportunity of work in a free country on a salary which, though modest according to our standards, enables him not merely to live decently, but even to put money in the bank towards his future home. Wealth Some refugees were able by more or less covert methods to smuggle money out of Europe. A much larger number of them must have been well-to-do: in Europe, but were unable to convert their useless mark accounts into anything beyond personal effects, which they therefore possess in abundance. There (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) ate some elderly people with capital enough to live on-which’ is no doubt why they were let in. There’ are Very few refugees who are making big°money in this country. Those whose: income touches four figures number perhaps forty, certainly under fifty, That number is constituted almost entirely by the doctors and dentists; as for the business men and manufacturers, the nurhber who. are making big incomes can certainly .be counted on the fingers of one hand. The popular idea that refugees as a class are coining money is bunk. The typical refugee is living frugally on a modest salary, fully aware that being an alien he can expect neither promotion nor wage increases for the duration, but.trying to save a little for harder times ahead. All refugees hate Hitler. Refugees are here because there was no place for them in Hitler’s Europe. Over half of them have near relatives who were unable to escape in time, and are therefore now in the ghetto camps of Poland: There ate no mail connections with these camps, no news ever comes out via. the Red Cross, but as for the aged and infirm, the refugee’s only hope is that his dear ones died quickly and easily. It-ig impossible to translate these facts inte our circumstances: but suppose that the other Party (the one you don’t . belong to) had seized the power in this country and set up a dictatorship; suppose . it had exiled you, a good New Zealander, to Chile and murdered your parents who stayed behind; would you, a good New Zealander, still have any sneaking regard for that Party? Obviously you would have only two possible choices: either to make a new home overseas, or to get into the war against the dictators; and to purge your country, if you still, loved it, with fire and slaughter. So our refugees have chosen the one or the other alternative, according to taste. Yet many New Zealanders still seem to think. that refugees are secretly pro-Nazi. Spy hysteria seems to be inevitable in wartime, Earlier in the war some people seemed to regard it as their special war job to gét all refugees interned. People. who should have known better rushed to the police with the well-worn storiesflashing lights, buzzing noises, a "guttural. language" spoken over the phone. However, since 1940 there has been a remarkably thorough combing of all the 8000-odd aliens in the country; and to: judge by the results, the authorities’ believe (though for obvious reasons they’ cannot say so) that there are no disguised enemy agents among our refugees. Military Service To persuade our refugees to fight and. work for the Allied cause it required neither terror nor propaganda, but only" a ‘little organisation. The "organisation came in 1942 in the form of national or military service for most refugees. One can imagine why that year had to’ be a turning ‘point’ in refugee policy. The’ country was bracing itself for attack? every able-bodied citizen was being" allotted an emergency job-except some" hundreds‘ of refugees. In the event of ‘a’ raid or a landing, were they to be left’ to their own devices, with no instriictions about where to go or what to do? Or’ should the authorities intern the lot, in deference to a noisy ‘section of public’ opinion ates ‘in rape gett ies ee own Rade on next Latees = B

(continued from previous page) better judgment- and take carpenters away from military work to build another large internment camp? The logic of the situation triumphed; to their credit the authorities defied reactionary opinion, and sent the reliable ablebodied refugees to the Army, the Home Guard, the E.P.S. and essential industry. The new policy of treating refugees as potential New Zealanders has been successful. Most refugees are now subject to manpower direction, and acceptances for the armed forces have greatly increased. It may be said that the refugee who enlists at this stage of the war has at least one eye on his own future. But it. must be remembered that in many cases he has enlisted before, or knew that he'would not be accepted earlier. After the War The above suggests that refugees have got along much better with cialdom than with the general public. It is true that they have resented ‘being called enemy aliens; because the term associates thém unjustly with pro-Nazi elements; they would have preferred an official. "refugee" status as in other countries. But the majority of them are sensible enough to tealise that no countty at war could accept a miscellany of fugitives from enemy territory without inquiries and precautions. Most. refugees have learned to regard the detective as their. friend, simply because the detective knows a. great. deal about them, whereas the man in the street does not. Their comfortable but inglorious segregation from a community at war has ended; most of them.can now claim to be doing something for the war effort; they are on. the way to becoming New Zealanders. But by now many of them doubt whether they want: to. be New Zealanders, For one thing, the intellectuals feel starved in our pragmatist, materialist atmosphere; ered miss the music, the conversation, causes of Europe. More widespread are the family worries. If one has parents penniless in Shanghai, a sister or two in Lublin ghetto, a brother or two in the Allied forces somewhere, and a father-in-law trying to build a business in Ecuador, one finds it hard to concentrate on the immediate task of becoming a New Zealander. At least one refugee in five will move elsewhere after the war; in fact, the number has been set as high as one in two. "And a good thing too," you may (or may not) say. Only, if you say it, ask yourself: these questions: | one of the people who shouted against "Pommies," our own kith and kin, twenty a ‘ago? Have I considered that if this experiment fails, New Zealand will have been without any effective scheme of immigration for just on thirty years? How can the country be held without (at the’ very least) a fourfold growth of population? Is there something wrong with all these nine hundred people, or is the trouble not: partly in me too, my intolerance, my lack of human sympathy, my reticence, my expecting too much of those who have. the misfortune: not to be British born, my desire to sit pretty, dog-in-the-manger or. not, falling birthrate and all? Are not all immigration policies always unpopular, and ‘is it.not nevertheless the duty of a good New Zealander to make room for the outsider with a good grace, for. the good:of his country?