414
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
November, 1941
Will the Refugee Find Christ. . . B u r in g t h e O p e n in g turmoil iii Europe in 1939, I was priv ileged to visit the relief agency conducted by the Swedish Mission and - By BARTLETT L. HESS* Chicago, Illinois “evangelisch” (Evangelical Lutheran, though occasionally Reformed). Of those still in Greater Germany, it has been estimated that 40 to 50 per cent are considered Christian by faith.
in America are the Hebrew Christian Alliance, the Friends of Israel Refugee Committee, the Friends’ Service Com mittee, the American Committee for Christian Refugees. Most of these, newcomers have en joyed unusual educational opportunities and held positions of responsibility and influence in their homelands. Of the several hundred refugees who are now in our Christian refugee group in Chi cago, the majority occupied important positions in mgdicine, in teaching, in business, in music, in painting, in social work. The majority of those who have come in recent months are nominally Chris tian, and at least thirty per cent or more of all who have come could be so classified. Most of those from Austria would be considered Roman Catholic and most o f those from the rest of Germany • Some of the passengers of the Span ish freighter “Navemar,” which reached New York on September 1. The ship, meant to accommodate 15 passengers, carried 777 European refugees. Photo by Press Association, Inc.
the Protestant churches of France in Paris. Of the 350 families registered there, 89 individuals held doctors’ de grees: i. e.p Laws, Medicine, or Philos ophy. Among those whom I met at-that time was a former Rome correspondent for one of the largest Gentian news papers; an actor who had been popular and famous; a former private physician to one of the kings of a Balkan country; a former proprietor of one of Vienna’s largest restaurants; a former judge in one of Germany!s largest cities; an emi nent violinist and composer from Buda pest; a former high tax official a n d economist in the Czech Government. In the course of the last eight years, 125,000 refugees, the overwhelming ma jority one-fourth or more Jewish in an cestry, have come to the shores of Amer ica from Central Europe. Having been stripped of position and place, of em ployment and of home, they have come largely through the kindness of relatives or friends here, or through various ref ugee organizations, cultural, Jewish, and Christian. Among these organizations * Pastor , Trinity Presbyterian Church.
Lilje American church members, some of these refugees who are professing Christians have come to a definite ac ceptance of the Lord Jesus as their Saviour and are devotedly Christian, while others are not. All, however, are hungry for vital, evangelical Christi anity and will give audience to the gos pel. One woman from Vienna remarked, “I was bom a Jew, baptized a Catholic, and now go to a Protestant church. What am I ? ” “I hope you are Christ’s,” I said. The Refugee’ s Desire for Christ and the Church There is intense soul hunger among these refugees for the One who can sat isfy the heart. They have seen culture fail. They have seen the things upon which they leaned knocked from under them. They.have faced what one of them has called “the brutal nothing.” A refugee- feels as though he is sus pended in mid-air before he has found his refuge, having nothing, yet 'ever hop ing for something; and when hope dies
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