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They were Prepared 12
GERMANY
Schleswig-Holstein
A NEWLY-FORMED G.I.S. team was sent at the beginning of 1947 to Schleswig-Holstein to help to deal with problems arising from the influx of refugees from the east. The team were put in charge of 60 camps housing 10,000 Germans, who had trekked from New Poland, Silesia and East Prussia. The bare huts in the camps, erected on bleak, flat, and treeless land, were a dreary contrast to the farmsteads and homes the refugees had left, and they were discouraged and apathetic. Team-members made a survey of individual families to discover the most pressing needs, and, as a result, helped forward feeding schemes for the three-to-five year olds, already started by the German Red Cross; distributed all available codliver oil and baby foods to the most necessitous cases; endeavoured to establish homes for under- nourished children; and allocated supplies sent from G.I.S. London, which included food, clothing, medicaments, materials to keep men and women occupied, and toys, games and books for children.
By the end of March there were about 5,000,000 refugees in the British zone, of whom 1,250,000 were in Schleswig- Holstein, and 170,000 in the area cared for by the team. What had been in- tended for transit camps only took on the status of permanent dwellings, and the team's thoughts turned to " per- manent " schemes as wrell as temporary relief—workshops, sewing rooms, the re- vival of traditional " cottage " industries, and, above all, co-operation with German wel- fare and social, services to ameliorate the condition of the refugees.
While the needs ot every kind of DP and refugee were considered, certain groups claimed special attention—the very young whose future was jeopardised by danger of contracting tuberculosis through contact with already infected people and by lack of adequate food and living space; the very old, who often had no family to care for and support them; the youth, embittered by past treatment, or imbued with Nazi doctrines; the unmarried mothers; the physically impaired or unemployed men; the mentally unbalanced. Guiders in the field and G.I.S. headquarters in London were constantly in touch on these particular prob- lems, seeking how they might be solved, and taking practical steps wherever possible.
Hope for the future: A G.I.S. welfare worker takes particulars of an applicant for emigration. And (below) Displaced Persons in a transit camp preparatory to leaving for the United States of America
UNRRA teams and personnel had been withdrawn by the end of 1946, and during 1948 a number of the voluntary societies' teams also were withdrawn from Germany, leaving the remaining teams to organise welfare in areas five or six times as large as those in which they had until then been working. The practical side of relief now passed over to the DPs and the Germans themselves, and members of the G.I.S and other remaining voluntary societies had to become the eyes and minds of welfare rather than the hands and feet, and to act as liaison between the British authorities and the appropriate DP or German officials.
With the withdrawal of more voluntary society teams in 1949, a further readjustment had to be made. In each administrative area a welfare worker was installed —and the G.I.S. provided seven such workers— whose main object was to help the established German Refugee Committees through the early stages of their work and to foster employment and re-establishment projects. This individual work continued for about a year. The welfare of the refugees is now the responsibility of the Refugee Ministry in the new German Federal Government.
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