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Will They Settle Down Easily?

‘[ HE new settlers who landed from the Dundalk Bay are now in Pahiatua, undergoing the four weeks’ course of schooling that will make New Zealand and its people slightly less alien to those brought so far from familiar/scenes and ways of living. But how will the new settlers settle? The Listener thought that the only people likely to have an answer to this question would be those Europeans who had recently found homes in New Zealand. LATVIAN MBS. S., for example, is a Latvian who has been in New Zealand for 10 years. She came out to teach foreign languages at a girls’ school in Wellington, married a New Zealander and now has three children. "The Balts," she said, "are very good workers, and I’m sure will be as much an asset to the country as they seem to have been already in Australia. We are a serious-minded and conscientious people, and of course deeply religious. "T am worried that they may feel the cold terribly," she continued. "Yes, in (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) Latvia, of course, the winters are very severe, but our houses are very warm, no draughts. Not like here, where you light a fire and leave the door open. Of course, I do not know how they may have lived in these camps for the last few years, and they may well be hardened to privations. But I think it important to see to it that they have plenty of warm clothing." , Although most of the settlers were from the working classes there would possibly be quité a number of intellectuals in the English-speaking Latvian group. They would find the cultural isolation hard to bear, she said. On the other hand, New Zealanders were so natural and friendly in their attitude to foreigners that it was easy to feel at home. ; HUNGARIAN A SLIGHTLY more cynical note was struck by Mrs. E., a Hungarian woman who has also been here 10 years. "Most of thesd people will be grateful for anything," she said, "after, all those years in camp.’But you're bound to get a few with a martyr-complex who feel that éverything should be done to make up to them for what they’ve suffered." After 10 years here she herself feels a thorough-going New Zealander, all the more so since the verysrecent arrival of her brother and _ sister-in-law from Hungary. "They can’t get used to the food," she said. "I cook my vegetables the New Zealand way now, in water, and even like mutton. But my sister-in-law after three months here still cooks the Hungarian way, and won’t look at mutton. It makes it a bit difficult with only one kitchen." New Zealand, she thinks, is quite the best country to settle in, particularly if you have children. ; "T had a letter last week from my relations in America, suggesting I go there,’ she said, "and I would have gone if it hadn’t been for my little boy, but I think New Zealand is quite the best country to bring up children in. And it will be no time at all before the morante of. the children,

at Pahiatua realise that. On the other hand, it’s possibly the worst coun-~ try for! women. They’re never given a_ chance here to do anything besides the housework, and though of cotrse it’s a good thing to have so much food to carry home for the week-end, I’m almost half-dead on Friday afternoons."

RUSSIAN RS. B. is of Russian M birth, and came to New Zealand to be married at the end of the first World War. Now she is up at Pahiatua taking the Russian immigrants under her wing, teaching English. and acting as interpreter. "I do enjoy speaking Russian again," she said. Most of the families Mrs. B. has already sponsored have very quickly

come to terms with life in New Zealand. She quoted one young Czech who had spoken in glowing terms of the helpfulness of the men he worked alongside in his first New Zealand job: "They always took care that I was given the easy part of the work. But what I liked very much was the fact that if I was ever able to do anything for them they let me. It was not that they wanted all the kindnesses to come from them." "I'd like to see New Zealand open her doors to at least another thousand Europeans. New Zealand is so empty," she said. "Yes, I know it’s the housing, but it’s labour you’re short of rather than materials. And if your pioneers could build raupo huts or sod houses so can these people. They'll find plenty of stones in your rivers. All they ask is a chance to settle in somewhere after all these years of shifting from camp to camp. They need so much the reassurance of permanency." She had one concrete suggestion to make for the well-being of the Russians and Ukranians at the camp. "At present there is no Russian Orthodox priest for them," she said, "and I feel it is very important that they should have one. In times of great emotional stress religion becomes very important, and if you have left your native country forever it is necessary to feel you have not been deserted by your church as well." POLE , ISS K. is a middle-aged Polish woman who could speak no English when she arrived three months ago, but is picking it up .gradually. She does housework at a private hotel, and her opinion of New Zealanders is not so glowing as that of most of the other women The Listener has spoken to"They ‘ask me, the people in the hotel, why I come out here and I say, ‘Because it was the only country I get a permit for," and théy shrug as though to say ‘Poor New Zealand.’" Asked about the Poles who had recently arrived in New ‘Zealand she

said, "New Zealand is very lucky to get them. Very good workers and very good fighters." AUSTRIAN LARGE-SIZED sop to our cultural aspirations was provided by Mrs. D. who has been here for 18 months. Before that she was teaching music in Vienna. "I cannot speak for these others who have just come," she said, "but I am happy here because I am happy wherever there is music. New Zealand people are so interested in music-there is a piano in almost every house, and already I have more pupils than I can’ deal with." CZECH HE last person we spoke to was Mrs. S. who got away from Prague with her husband and little girl in 1938. "I think they are going to a lot of bother for these people," she said. "This four weeks of schooling! But it will certainly make it easier for them. But me! When I came I could not speak a word of English, and my husband about two words, but we managed in the end. And all we knew about New Zealand was from something we got from the Immigration Department while we were in Vienna, called New Zealand in a Nut- shell. And then we got a book written by some well-known Czech who had toured New Zealand years before and it

| a was an account of all the receptions he had’ been to. And according to him everything in the garden was lovely. But at first; of course, it was different for us. "Yes, we are all right now. The children are regular New Zealanders, They won’t eat garlic and they like their vegetables plain boiled, but = still eat my apple-strudel. "Homesick? Yes, of course I’m homesick. Probably nobody-certainly no woman-stops being homesick no mattter how long she spends in another country. It is easier, of course, with time. It will be very hard, just now, for those who have just arrived. I am happy here, but perhaps I am at the pictures, ot turning over the pages of a magazine, and there is a picture, it might be of Prague, and then I am walking down that street ‘and round the corner I will come to that tall apartment building where is the flat where we live. Then I come back, bump! and I know that I shall never see that street again." She shrugged, philosophically, the _ gesture of one who has accepted the inevitable with good. grace. Possibly at Pahiatua at this moment the hundreds of exiled Europeans are making the same gesture. It is a good one from New Zealand’s point of view, since it argues a willingness to leave the past behind and come to terms with what ig both New .Zealand’s future and theig own.

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.I whakaputaina aunoatia ēnei kuputuhi tuhinga, e kitea ai pea ētahi hapa i roto. Tirohia te whārangi katoa kia kitea te āhuatanga taketake o te tuhinga.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19490708.2.17

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 524, 8 July 1949, Page 6

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,455

Will They Settle Down Easily? New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 524, 8 July 1949, Page 6

Will They Settle Down Easily? New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 524, 8 July 1949, Page 6

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