Havens of Refuge

A group of 19 newsmen, mostly from the U. S., last week visited a lost world of misery, the concentration camps of Unoccupied France, which few outsiders had been allowed to see since the German conquest. In those camps still languish 30,000 people, mostly refugees from Germany, Spain, Austria, Czecho-Slovakia,who found shelter in France before the fall.

During a five-day inspection tour conducted by French authorities, the correspondents saw five camps: Recebedou, Noe and Le Vernet in the vicinity of Toulouse, Rivesaltes and Argeles-sur-Mer near Perpignan. Three more they did not see, including the notorious camp for German Jews at Gurs, in the Basses-Pyrenees. Gurs and Argeles, said Vichy spokesmen, are being abolished, their inmates transferred to other camps. What newsmen learned:

> Best camp is Recebedou, for the aged and infirm. It is mostly inhabited by German Jews, as is Noe. Its 84 concrete buildings are airy and bright, set on a shady, grass-covered inclosure outside of Toulouse.

> Worst camp is ragged Argeles, whose crude sheds of wood and corrugated iron, some without windows like those of muddy Gurs, still house remnants of the Spanish Loyalist Army, their wives, women and children.

> Le Vernet is a prison camp, closely guarded by soldiers. Its 2,651 inmates include a number of Britons who were arrested on suspicion, have yet to be told what the charges are against them.

> In spite of the scarcity of fruits and milk at Rivesaltes, a camp for child refugees and their parents, the children look healthy.

> Refugees get the same food which is rationed to all Frenchmen, but clothing, even rags, is not to be had, and there is no privacy for anyone.

> In most of the camps refugees plant their own gardens, suffer from lack of grain and seed for planting.

> Loudest complainers are the German Jews. The Spaniards accept their fate in grim silence.

> All the refugees now dream of escaping to the U. S., but it is only a dream. Most of them have sunk into the apathy of boredom, have lost all hope of ever again leading civilized lives.

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