Mislaid Humanity

On V-E day about 6,000,000 impatient Europeans will start walking home. That was the guess, last week, of Fred K. Hoehler, UNRRA's director of "displaced persons," who figures that by war's end the number of mislaid people in Europe will still bearound 15,000,000--not counting prisoners of war.

UNRRA wishes they would wait for transportation but knows that they will be impatient. An estimated 11,000,000 mislaid people will be found in Germany: 600,000 Belgians, 1,000,000 Czechs, 3,000,000 French (including remaining war prisoners), 500,000 Dutch, 3,000,000 Poles, 2,000,000 Russians, 200,000 Yugoslavs, 6,000 Norwegians, 500,000 Italians. Since the Allied armies will be controlling Germany, UNRRA has just signed an agreement with General Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Within a year after V-E day, most of the mislaid survivors will probably be home again, but it may take 20 years to repatriate all who want to go back. At least 1,000,000 may not want or dare to go home. Of World War I's 2,000,000 refugees, a quarter never got home.

Among others to whom V-E day will not bring the promise of speedy repatriation are some 400,000 refugees of the Spanish civil war, a great many of them in France, and thousands of Poles in & out of uniform, scattered from Scotland to Calcutta.

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