1938-03-03 — Page 22

10

O THE HONG KONG. TELEGRAPH.

THURSDAY,

MARCH

Two Million

People Leave Home

by

Geoffrey Brereton

Tis very quiet in this street. Often machine-gun bullets whistle down it and make holes like the ones in that door we have just passed.

Shells are a commonplace, For that reason none of the houses has window-panes, and there are many round gaps in the brick walls.

Here and there a house is in

ruins the

work of bombs

rather than sheus.

.

But just now all is quiet. There are no children playing in the road. There is no trame, for trams could not pass the stone barricades which bar the streets in CASO of infantry attack.

Yet this quarter of Madrid la in- habited. Look up and you will sco two women sitting sowing on the second floor of a house. The whole front has been blown out, so that they sit between three walls like actors on a stage. No doubt they live in the cellar, and go up in the evening for air,

THERE аге children, too, but their games are listless and subdued. They play near the chalm of old men dreamlug in doorways,

Farther down a cart is being loaded. A few rush-seated chairs, a cheap chest of drawers, a mirror.

It is a pathetic medley.

The people in the street are un- Because their homes are happy.

half ruined? Because food is scarce? Because they are living in the shadow of death?

No. The reason is that they have received the final and irrevocable order to quit.

Some 400,000 people have been evacuated from Madrid.

But as this equals the number of refugees who already have come in from the surrounding country, the total population has not diminished.

-Because of-the-shortage of food and the complete absence of fuel,

-To-day's Thought- SURELY"help" must be the most beautiful word in any language.

-MERRICK

the authorities are now making a supreme effort to evacuate entre Soon It is quarters of the city. hoped that there will be no civi- Hans living within a mile of the firing-line.

The problem is to provide for them after they have left their homce. The Government territory is saturated with refugees. From Malage alone came 200,000. from the Basque Provinces 80,000 more. Countless others have mored. either from invaded territory or from regions so near the front that the uad become unsafe.

In Catalonia alone they number 200,000--one refugee to every four of the native population, Murcia, Valencia, and the centre provinces harbour more than this.

No one knows the exact total, for besides those living in official colonies many are staying with

in parts of Spain ond in four of the population is C refugee.

private families who ungrudgingly share with them already short rations. At the lowest estimate there are nearly two million of them.

The Government is doing every- thing

in its power to feed and clothe them. In this work it has received the devoted help of the international committees.

But funds, and particularly the supply of saltable foods, are far from adequate. Without increased help from abroad, the plight of the refugees this winter will be almost desperate.

In the town of Ocaña four roads macet. One leads in from Madrid; its opposite number takes you to- wards the south Two other roada run due west and south-west, to Cuenca and Valencia respectively. My lorry had stopped in the While we were refuelling, plaza.

soven covered lorries went by. Each one carried some thirty women and children sitting on planks that had been laid across to form seats.

An eighth lorry followed piled with luggage, and Enally a ninth which came to a halt beside us.

The driver was arguing with aomeone, gently but firmly. Two little old women were helped down. In their black shawls and skirts they stood forlornly on the pave- menta edno.

They looked helplessly after the lorry as it drove away towards Valencia. I jumped down and spoke to them, Both were going to live with their daughters, in a town whose name they had for- gotten. But they knew it was a long way off.

THE Iamo woman 'fum- bled in her clothing and produced a paper. It Was a permit authorising her to travel by road from Madrid. I road for name, which does not mattor. Her age: 83,

Then I saw that on the small sacks which wore all their luggage someone had stuck type-written labels. They bore names and full addressca in Cuenca, a hundred

miles away.

they were

stranded.

not lost-only

Let us return to Madrid,

This elementary school was once one of the finest not only in Spain, but in Europe.

I inquire for Don Angel Llorca,

headminster its

and presiding genius. Don Angel, I am told, is now running a children's colony near Valencia.

A forty-minutes' bus ride took me from Valencia to El Perelló. In El Perelló, half fishing village. haif summer resort, was a pleasant house with sunblinds and cool tiled

walls.

Don Angel, grey-bearded 'and benevolent, sat at the head of the table. Twenty children of vary ing ages were just finishing lunch. He waved me to a chair beside him.

"Well," he asked, "What news of Madrid?"

I told him, but without mention- ing the marks on the walls.

The children, sitting relaxed after their meal, sang in chorus Spanish folk-songs. When they paused, the sound of singing could be heard from other rooms.

"You see," smiled Don Angel. "It's just like it used to be in Madrid"

DON ANGEL had not changed one fot of his methods. He showed me the well-used library books, the clean, bright rooms which the children themselves looked after. and sheat after shent of drawings in which they had recorded the day's adventures.

They are all right here," he sald."But I wish there were more of them. Far too many are still left in Madrid."

Next day El Perelló was bombed from the air. In that raid I do not think anyone was hurt.

+

But there will be others..

1

"The teacher's work," says the Government, "la vital and. must be continued." Here, at a newly-established school at Benicasim, near Valencia, a class of war-orphaned boys and girls have lessons on the veranda of a converted viita,

Children

of Spain

DOWN on the east coast of Spain, near Valencia, are lovely villas that formerly belonged to wealthy Spaniards. Now they are at once homes and schools for hundreds of orphan children from the front-line

towns

14

Hero schooling, so tragically interrupted, resumed. Republican Spain forges ahead with its educational plans for two-fold purposo.

The frat is to obiiterate from youthful minds the worst horrors of war. The second is to build up a nation of educated people.

Already tho' seven-year-old. Republlo has estab lished more than 10,000 new schools.., and even now, with war mnging, new ones open every week.

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2

*

In a class-room at Bonionatm. These boya hayo lost their mothers but hava found food and shelter as well as schooling. Not all "thé refugees who have awarmed to Catalonia and Bouth-Eastora pain have been na fortunate.

Lessons done, these chudrun play: happly on the beach at Dentenalm. But they are not allowed to forget the war that has loft them motherions. Recently, they were bombed and machine-gunned by aircraft from Franco's base at Majorem

...

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