Voices of Europe; Odd Nansen and Waltraud Skupin

Voices of Europe Milton Mayer American author and lecturer broadcaster and professor in the Institute of Social Research from Frankfurt University today interviews a refugee and also learns the story of the Nansen passport in the town of Bend Oregon the members of the First Presbyterian Church wanted to do something good for somebody who had suffered in the wars of the world. The good that they have done Milton Mayer saw in the stable in the village of Falcon Bach in west central Germany in the stable of the family of Hunt's school Queen and his wife Walter out he had a conversation with Dolly. Dolly is now a col when she left Bend Oregon on her way to Falcon Bach. She was a heifer a calf carrying her first calf. It was the Heifer Project originated by the brother and Service Committee of the Church of the brethren which brought Dolly and some 12000 other animals goats collars and bulls to a stricken farmer's refugees all over the world in Asia as well as here in Europe. Dolly is doing well as we shall soon hear when Milton Mayer speaks with the Heifer Project all thought originated with the Church of the brother and in the United States is one of

those little ideas which caught fire and it is now supported by members and groups of many other churches and non-church organizations including the Methodist committee for overseas relief the evangelical and Reform Church the American Baptist home Mission Society the Mennonite Central Committee the Rural Life Association the Fellowship of Reconciliation the National Catholic rule Life Conference and the well-known service clubs the Rotarians the quanties and the lions. All of them have participated in bringing heifers like Dolly to people like the school penes. The Scorpions had a farm installation in Eastern Germany. The section which is now Poland that farm consisted of one hundred forty acres in three large pieces of land. Their present farm and Falcon dock is 30 acres divided into 110 pieces of land with 14 separate hay fields none of which joins another. So life is pretty hard for the school pains but it has been much harder for them in the past

and it wouldn't be quite as easy as it is now if some people in America had not thought of trying to bring the seeds of life and construction to those parts of the world where they are most needed. Now here is Milton Mayer to interview for our ultimate Scorpene for our school. When you tell us about your farm in some Asia Yaz I will tell you you know for sure. 54 come I was 7 says 33 pigs hens and pigeons. There are good and great machines. Our house was great we were home our. Five a darling little modern kitchen and six sleeping rooms upon family guests and servants and apprentices. I would cheerfully up drowsily many persons around

are coming and going or gaze. We had also critically and sat for we have had always meant enough grokking because all of them rocked. But luckily being for some a rock was beginning. But there was a darkest day in our lives. Twenty years John you're nineteen hundred and forty five. We have before on our show and. Our men in towns and villages had to leave at 9:00 to direct us horses and our car was. Our youngest daughter was round here. We put her into a linen basket beds but often she became very ill and

cold. 11 families had been rocking on our farm. Several of our generation all of us went to visit us in our very good music beds and closers So we went from town to town from morning till night not knowing who and where else this really would be finished. We slept in straw in schools all buns menus how dozens of people were to have and it was like to time off mic ration of solutions and you were in this sergeant and so ensure that our Proust copying was from January of 1945 until one hour.

And in February. Two checks in the ardor of our truck caught fire in a fight. The horses around taken by the Czechs which we must leave Sharon said and ranch to buy up to the very hour we were back back into Germany. Yes yes it is therefore a very bad time. Too many people streamed to the area. So the question was a thought everybody lay out to address whether it was true. My husband having come back nineteen hundred forty six. From what I should imprisonment and I we must to arc

on of in front of us and I'm not sure so very hard and set very much to take it really is a little of a check. Here in front can buff. We have had no money but our government has lent us 10 or so hours into mach four by Hamas for cows to pigs some Esurance buildings we have got our not best to it particularly as a house it is a bad dark cartoon. I had to go out during 17 years but never had any scene and it is so unhealthy and regret always in summer we are outdoors in fresh air but in winter it is very hard for us

to live the setting because our sun shine because the house has only two windows to the north on side but it's not as bad as being on the roads was when you had to leave so late in the winter of 1945. That was much worse I imagine. Yes so I suppose you think if you think of that then you are happy. Yes we are happy. If you think of your own home insulation then your SAT is now from our school peen Where did you get your cows your animals when you first arrived here and Falcon bought the car was you we borrow. So these are who were that did not give milk enough and so we must buy a new car was. Exact time we got so high

food from friends of America we are going to a very good idea in the beginning I only spoke English which it is. It was so small and zero foreign in head and next it could go up and got a half a nineteen hundred and fifty to run such a nice little sing. I never had seen before and second in Mary nineteen hundred and fifty two. Now if I understand correctly Frau scooping the condition. Of you're receiving one of these half hours from the have for a project is that you must give the first calf to another refugee farm. So first of all the first the first female came into care have mothers given to another farmer it is true

and I was a fugitive but the two calves that Dolly has had were both males. You notice I said it is for our school peen is Dolly any different from your German collars as are VERY soon as our cars are big and heavy. We must fetch a veteran there is surgeon two or three but it is a car. As to fish to artificially artificially so we had no hard feelings or rather just the same as. We are certain is pride of results MILLER Look for it has so to hurt her I wasn't here in summer only NZ has a car was coming outdoors into a pasture good it was rich it was a rounded

wire fence electric in America and here for our school peen is Dolly as good as you are German cows and scooters are all colors buggery doesn't give as much milk as your bigger cars. Not so much like our own cars but it don't feel our car doesn't need as much heat and house hard as the milk. Compare it with your cows with the milk from your house. Two sounds of our ears and what is the quality of the milk you quote high as our milk. Yeah so the root of all was when you first came to Falcon bar to Hassen in

western Germany was only one of the people who lived here Were they friendly with the refugees with the fugitives. Yes they were friendly to us and when we look into history we know that. So I wasn't years ago. His sin and drunken rant used to are just too great uncultivated forests built up towns and villages rocked and lived very well or till we were asked to leave. Speaking Reza from US of A I wondered so hardly budget is necessarily for out of paying taxes those are high prices from Iraq and butter us. But surprise us

from actions are rising and often we don't know how to please and we're from Missouri from East we have to pay the lease and also so interest for us alone so we must work very hard live from one till night and whence it is misfortune in stable or tempests and dangerous to have used our last summer when a trio never seen an army of Heroes and it was so dry as not in many years. Then we must take care not to lose. Thank you very much for us cooking. An occasional letter still comes to the office of architect art Nansen in the city of Oslo addressed simply Nansen Norway adn Ensign's father for each of Manson. The professor of oceanography who invented the Nansen passport received thousands and thousands of such letters. Architect Manson

himself is considerably more famous as a humanitarian than he is as an architect. He has worked all his life for Refugees and he is president of the Norwegian section of the world movement for world government. Here is Milton Mayer to interview odd Nansen very well rather than answer passport the instant passport was an international passport or rather an international identification papers invented by my father a creature of Nansen and adopted by all the governments of countries belonging to the League of Nations. After the First World War many millions of people poor. More into Europe because millions of Russians. Million the Armenians and other groups and they of

course were all to be considered as a stateless people. And the countries where they happened to come wouldn't let them stay inside their borders to be drawing them out. And at last my father tried to put an end to this giving them a passport which gave them the right to stay on in the country where they where. And another thing very important to all this to come back there have that s there internationally called it the dummy seal does the Nansen passport to put an end to the shameful business of pursing perfectly innocent people back and forth across the borders between the countries of Europe like cattles. And this of course was a sign of great hope in those days. The

nations of the world was rather shocked when they heard the real truth about what was happening to people. And then Ensign Porson passport was a sort of a symbol for him an Italian a some of humanity. How many Nansen passports were issued altogether here Nancy. That is very hard to say. I should referee say about a couple millions. But after the collapse of the League of Nations and the coming of the Second World War. It in an instant passport also it wasn't disputed anymore. A few countries invented in their own passports for foreigners as a German. For instance the French Pass they had a similar thing in my country.

And then after the Second World War the situation was rather changed even if the repartee problem by far wasn't solved. When the Second World War started. Does the world need a passport today Hansen has said the situation after the Second World War is very modest changed compared to the one we had after deferred the war. I told you then. We had so many stateless people. Today we have refugees and many many millions more than we had at that time. But this situation is slightly different. They are not considered to be stateless people as most of them.

Belong to countries in Western Europe especially than in Germany and that is the main refugee problem in Europe today are caused that the German refugees which count up to 12 13 millions you would prob probably know that in 45. About 15 million people of German origin were drawn out of the eastern countries in Europe in from German from Germany itself Eastern Brashear from Pommery Alessia from Hungary to Romania and even from Russia. Only 12 of those 15 millions arrived in Western Germany 3 millions of them disappeared. They were killed to starve and or disappeared some where and then there is a group of

people. Which is called the German ethnic group that is what Hitler him selve called the whole direction in the mansion which today is accepted by by the rest of the world. You mean this this racist doctrine of Hitler and of the Nazis the doctrine of the folks Deutsch. That is they the people everywhere who belong to Germany and the German race. We may call it the false doctrine of racism. There's this false doctrine has been accepted in the handling of refugees by the very nations which conquered Nazi SS. We have a group of refugees today which is real refugees internationally considered refugees that is to so-called displaced persons.

To say that in one word or very short that is non-Germans gravity's. But all the German refugees which count in only in the DRI Western zones in Germany today the French the English and the Americans own with up to 10 millions. But they are Germans considered as Germans and not as as refugees. And how is it that such a thing as the Nansen passport would not help such people. Well if they had a passport saying that you are free to go to the country you wish to go to. It may be a very good thing but it wouldn't help you today to have a Nansen passport in Germany because a German refugee can get a German passport but that wouldn't give him the right to go to any other country. On the contrary it is very difficult having a German passport to enter any other country in the world today. For instance my own country.

We may be able to take on quite a few refugees but you will probably understand that after 5 years of German occupation it's not so very easy to make our authorities accept German refugees as settlers or immigrants to know. People who wish to leave the country where they are today for instance the Germans they cannot find the country to go to. They are threatened by persecution there. They were very persecuted during Hitler as we know for instance the Jews the terrible tragedy of all the Jews who were were killed by now in the Nazi regime by the Nazi regime. But six

millions of them. Those who survive and they don't want anymore to stay on in Germany they are afraid because the persecution may come again. The problem then I take it there Nansen in our time is to find a place where people can go they want to leave. Is that right. I may illustrate that by telling a little story about a little Jewish boy who I met when I was in concentration camp during the war in Germany was a little boy his name was Tommy. He was 10 years old when I met him in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. And he had already spent five years in this hell. Of Auschwitz in Poland he had there

to amputate a couple of toes therefore he was brought to Sachsenhausen in the hospital there and where we found him. A friend friends of mine and myself the of course treated him as good as we could gave him our Which we got from our country from Sweden and Denmark to the Red Cross and be very very fond of him. Of course when I left they were namely saved by the Count Bernadotte of Sweden he took us to Sweden before the end of the war and they had to leave me alone because I thought it was the last time I saw the little boy. But after the war I happened to go through Germany and many of the countries of Europe on an east expedition for. You're military in

purpose and of course I searched all over the place for Tommy but without any result I had to give it up give it up. But when I came home returned home to nowhere that time I found a little letting my table. And restor Nansen no way that post from Tommy and seeing my name in some German paper. And he told me that he remembered my name and he wrote to me a very beautiful little letter just asking if I was the man who he met in towns in housen and who was of a kind to him and he just wanted to thank me. He didn't ask for anything like all the other letters which I got. What what has happened to Tommy.

There are nights and yes he if he is now living. Well for the time being he is now in America but he came back to Germany because his mother which who all of who also so why isn't true the one whom she searched for Tommy for two years after the war and found him and lost his father. I'm sorry to say he was killed before the end of the war but those two they found each other and because they wanted to get their way from Germany and it tried it to come to your country to the United States. This was after the war. It was after the war it was three years after the war I almost three years after the war I met them.

But travel is now for Tommy's mother after the war he joined an organization for women which was a erected to help help her two prisoners to return from concentration camp to get their property back in help them in all the in all ways and the organization turned communistic. After a few years and know the trouble is that your country wouldn't allow anybody who has been a member of that organization to enter into your country. And this lady has never been a columnist. And one of the best and bravest ladies I ever met in my life she is day me without any permission to go into your country and she can't find any

country to go to. Karen Hansen What what can you as a Norwegian and I as an American what can we do about this. The first of all we can do is to try and do all we can to make the United Nations do what it should be a real world parliament where of course no Gretl should exist. By the east or by the West and this Parliament is at the point of a government. Until that happens what can you do and what can I do. In our own countries in the meanwhile I think you and I can fight in the it's our country against all these regulations which has taken the hope from

all those millions of people in the world today. That is to say to lift the curtains which all of our countries have placed around the ideals of this that you of Liberty your country as well as mine. Thank you Erica. Milton Mayer has been interviewing for our ultimate Scorpene a refugee and Falcon back Germany. And Harold Nansen in Norway in this program of the series voices of Europe the program you have just heard has been made possible under a grant from the fund for adult education an independent organization established by the Ford Foundation. These programs are prepared and distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This program was introduced by Norman McKee and this is the end APB tape network.