DISPLACED LIVES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 801, 26 November 1954, Page 13

DISPLACED LIVES

THE WILD PLACE, by Kathryn Hulme; Shakespeare Head, English price 15/6. "| HE Wild Place, or Wildflecken as the Germans called it when they used it as a camp for S.S. and Ski Troops, was a camp for displaced Poles awaiting repatriation. In July, 1945, Miss Hulme set out with a team of UNRRA officers to take charge of. it. The team seemed to reflect the international flavour of its sponsor organisation: in a team of 12, its members spoke French, Dutch, Norwegian, Flemish and English. On arrival at their destination they were somewhat awed by, the magnitude of the task. They found a camp consisting of 60 blockhouses and covering an area of 15 square miles. To feed the 20,000 inhabitants rations had to be provided at the rate of 600 tons a month, A miracle of organisation was needed to cope with the trainloads of newcomers, to despatch similar trainloads of "placed" families, and to feed, clothe, and minister to the inhabitants. That side was a permanent problem in logistics, but superimposed on it was what might be termed a concentration of human existence. In other words, within the camp boundaries, lived enough people to populate a fair-sized town. There were the murders, love affairs, family lives, petty jealousies, and all the other familiar manifestations of the normal human behaviour pattern, All this against the pitiful background of "How soon wil] it be my turn?" This straightforward, unsentimental and often humorous account of the monumental task of clearing up the tragie aftermath of war earned for Kathtvn Hulme the Atlantic Non-Fiction

Prize for 1953.

B.

C.