Aged, Ill European Refugees from China

One of the most tragic situations confronting the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees concerns European refugees in China. They are refugees who, mainly for political reasons, in the period following the outbreak of the First World War, went to China where most of them became established in professions or business. Through the combined efforts of the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration, voluntary agencies and the host governments, a group of fifty-one refugees of European origin stranded in China were recently moved to homes and sanatoria in Belgium, Denmark and Sweden, on a Scandinavian Airlines flight which took them from Shanghai half-way around the world to their destinations.
Here, Xenia Zaharenkova, 86, the oldest, talks with French doctor Jacqueline Wink, who was in medical charge of the flight. Of the 51 aboard, 31 were more than seventy years old. Only one had ever been up in an aircraft before. Dr. Wink reported that all enjoyed an undisturbed flight.