Magyar Egyház, 1957 (36. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1957-02-01 / 2. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 11 ostracism of this international moral leper and the release of millions of slaves from their living death. Soviet Russia is little more than a vast slave camp in remote parts of which smaller slave-labor concentration camps, hundreds of them, are located. Nor can mention of them be dismissed as slanderous inventions of “Fascist beasts” or “bourgeois swine”, as the spokesmen for the Kremlin are wont to do. The number of persons in the concentration camps is not known for certain but estimates run between eleven and twentytwo million persons. These slave-gangs labor on national projects, many of them under primitive conditions with the average life in such camps from three to five years. There are factual accounts written by former inmates who have been released or have escaped. Working conditions in some of the mines and on other projects are worse than barbarian, and living conditions in the compounds are not fit for cattle. I have corresponded with German and Hungarian men who have worked under such conditions since World War II. Some of them contracted tuberculosis and were released. I lived with two such persons for a month three years ago in Germany and in Vienna I knew a man who had spent seven years as a slave in Soviet mines and forests. Their stories corroborate what has been painstakingly written, but our people, by and large, prefer to exclude such unpleasantries from their thinking. A theological student told me that living conditions were so deplorable in the camp in which he slept nights after the long days in the mines or the forests that it was constantly disease-ridden. Not until 38 men in his compound died in one day was a physician sent for. During World War II a correspondent wrote from Russia: “It was at Ryazan that we saw something which, had I seen it at home, would have filled me with indignation and disgust, but which, because its victims seemed not to care or object, was no concern of mine. Standing beside our train was a long line of flat cars intercepted here and there by barren prison vans. On the flat track opposite our window were perhaps thirty women guarded by an NKVD man with a tommy-gun. They were squatting like dummies there, and had not moved for hours, for against their exposed flanks the first snows of winter had driven, and there they now rested . . . There was something terrible about them. They looked like the last inhabitants of a world they could remember to have once been populated by a race of happy men who existed no longer” (Quoted by D.R. Davies, THE SIN OF OUR AGE, p. 118). Perhaps it is true, as some contend, that no deliberate cruelty is intended in the Soviet slave labor system. Cruelty “is something which one can inflict only on human beings or animals. Once you reach the point of reducing men and women and children to the status of instrument, the concept of cruelty vanishes” (ibid., p. 121). 3. There should be the imposition of strict economic sanctions on the Soviet block by the entire “free world.” 4. There should be social isolation of the present Soviet government by the entire “free world” in order to register our utter disgust with its God-denying and soul-destroying system. 5. There should be the creation of an effective UN military arm capable of enforcing UN mandates. 6. America and the “free world” must become convinced of the priority of the things of the Spirit. This is no longer a concern for speculation or discussion only, but an utter necessity for our survival in the catastrophic world in which we live. Prayer and the Holy Spirit are our greatest needs so that we may become in reality a people of Him who is our refuge and shield. If the above policy were adopted there would be great confusion in high places, not a little of it within the cold walls of the Kremlin. There would be screaming and threats of war. Timid souls in the West would call for retreat in the name of peace, goodwill — and injustice, forgetting that a nation which seeks its selfpreservation at any price is a nation which deserves the destruction which inevitably overtakes it. There were timid souls in Britain and France when Hitler began his march of conquest and their advice, for a time, prevailed. In retrospect we see that compromise of righteousness is not even a paying policy. Responsible living in the international community today is difficult. A false step could mean disaster. The gravest mis-step, however, is a moral one. “With firmness in the right, a God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in ... to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations.” (Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, 1865). (This article appeared in The Church Herald, Feb. 1, 1957.) Churches at Work For Hungarian Refugees The figures indicate that there are 150 thousand refugees as a result of the fighting in the revolution and the Soviet intervention in Hungary. In spite of action by European governments and prompt movement of the first sufferers into other countries the number of Hungarian refugees in Austria is now more and more. After a temporary lull in the numbers coming over, the deteriorating situation in Hungary brought nightly waves of about five thousand. The combined efforts of national governments, the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration and church and welfare bodies are aimed at re-housing them, first in Austria, then in other countries, at a rate that is not able to keep pace with the influx. The World Council of Churches, working with the churches in Austria, the Lutheran World Federation and the Brethren Service Commission, has been active in distribution of food and clothing, blankets and emergency medical supplies. About 14 Hungarian-speaking pastors move among the refugees to interpret and advise. Many Hungarians are now being moved to newlyprovided accommodation in institutions and private homes made available by the churches in such countries as France, Switzerland, the Netherlands and England. The Service to Refugees of the World Council of Churches in Geneva believes that aid to the victims of the Hungarian tragedy will be a long-term assignment in welfare and resettlement. Money and goods will be needed when the first emergency is no longer in the headlines. “The more we can raise now,” said the director of the Service, Dr. Edgar Chandler, “the more we shall have in hand to deal with the tasks that are going to face us for many months to come.” E.P.S., Geneva.
