By a Stag Reporter The German children, recently arrived here, several of them chosen by the Catholic German organisation, Caritas, have now all gone to the families who are to be their hosts during their stay in England.
Some of them went direct, but others were sent to a delightful country house in Tilford, near Farnham, because they required some nursing and rest.
At the invitation of the International Help for Children committee I went down to see the children recently. All of them looked peaked, anti many were far too small for their age. Small wonder, for they come from muchbombed Hanover.
They have spent their infant years among rubble and in cellars and their food has been scarce and far from nutritious. Even the short stay at this pleasant Little Pond House has done wonders for them.
With them was a pretty young teacher, Dr. Ursula Nauroth, who has had her own troubles and had to spend the first week of her stay here in bed.
She is the Catholic leader chosen by Caritas to accompany the Catholic children and she has been taking them to Mass, when conveyance was possible, at Farnham.
"On one Sunday," she told nie, " Fr. Rohe (of Farnham) paid for the car out of his own pocket." This delicate-looking girl and her family were refugees from East Prussia—the land which is now Polish territory.
PARENTS LEFT We had to leave my father behind, and toy mother, who was ill. My young brother and myself tramped hundreds of miles. always a little ahead of the Russians.
"My father has since joined us but he finds it difficult to get work, and really the whole family is dependent on what I earn as a teacher."
Now that the German children have gone to their respective private homes, Little Pond House is being got ready to receive 25 Italian children, some of whom have been living in horribly overcrowded conditions —sometimes twelve in a room.
Once again British homes (and in this case the majority of them Catholic) will be opened to receive the visitors.
A member of the "Save the Children " fund told me: " I am not a Catholic but I have been profoundly impressed at the generosity of these Catholic families in England in taking yet one more child into their houses."
After the Italians will come the Greeks.
Games (for wet days) and clothes are always needed for Little Pond House. All communications to International Help for Children, 43 Parliament Street, London, S.W.I.