Magyar Egyház, 1959 (38. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1959-11-01 / 11. szám
MAGYAR EGYHÁZ 9 Report On Austria: Haven For Refugees by Baden Hickman World Refugee Year Reporter for the World Council of Churches Austria has been a postwar haven for trudging, terrified refugees by the thousands — like the 180,000 escapees of the 1956 Hungarian uprising. It is estimated that in ten years as many as 1,500,000 men, women, and children have arrived homeless, penniless, and too often hopeless into an Austria which has generally shown the greatest patience and understanding. Today, within the nation whose moral and fiscal rejuvenation is symbolic of Western Europe’s postwar recovery, a great attempt to solve the problems of refugees is taking place. During World Refugee Year Austria has become the scene of a huge united effort to rescue thousands caught in the cocoon of their own inertia. And it is in the sweat and the sorrow of this setting that the World Council of Churches is to be found. The present program is one that is typical in width and depth of a WCC national operation. The caseload of refugees totals more than 4,500. There are 1,620 for integration into local communities. There are the old and physically handicapped, many of whom have been languishing in camps for ten or fifteen years, and the young. Something like 2,000 of the Hungarian refugees who moved into Austria were unaccompanied young the nearby mountains. It will house 28 families (75 people) from Camp Parsch, the depressing compound of worn wooden huts which at one time housed as many as 2,500 people in only 30 barracks. Just 232 refugees remain. Some are seven to a room. This will be the last winter they will have to listen to their neighbors’ tramping along the dividing corridors. Another apartment block is also being built in the center of famous Salzburg which will become the longawaited home of just over another 80 hardcore refugees. These are the old and the handicapped, rejects for whom other nations have said there is no room. They must be integrated in their land of asylum. One-Room Habits These and other building schemes in Austria by the World Council are designated “housing with care.” Camp life inevitably leaves its scars on the mind and general outlook. An on-going program, which lists such things as housecraft and hygiene, is necessary. Housepride must be restored for those used to living in one room. Rents of the new accommodation also proves to be an immediate problem. While the rent of 250 Austrian boys and girls, student leaders of the revolution and sheer adventure-minded teenagers. Austria is one of the places where wholesale camp clearance is the goal of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The WCC policy dovetails into this humane scheme for among the prerequisites of rehabilitation has long been the necessity for adequate housing. A new block of WCC apartments was opened in Salzburg only days ago as the first fresh snow sprinkled shillings ($10) a month is relatively cheap, it is still high compared with the previous camp charge of 50 Austrian shillings a month. This requires careful advice and aid from WCC staff. The leader of the team and the World Council’s refugee work in Austria is Mr. Arthur Foster. He is an Englishman, a Lancastrian, from a region noted for common sense. And to be with Arthur Foster, senior field officer, for only a few hours makes one think there is something in that boastful claim. With his Schools, supported by the Churches, care for refugee youths without families.
