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TO CONSTANTINOPLE 33
as I could understand, it was to be used to meet the cost
of transporting the refugees elsewhere—presumably to the
churchyard. It could hardly be tåken as rent for their present
accommodation !
For the rest, many of these poor creatures looked remarkably
well, in spite of all they had been through ; some of the
women looked healthy and strong, though others were gaunt
and haggard ; and some of the men were tall, strong, and
able-bodied. With Mr. Quisling as interpreter I talked with
some of them. Their one wish was to get to some place
where they could work and support themselves, for their
present life was intolerable. They wanted to go to Russia,
but were willing to go practically anywhere, except back to
Bulgaria. Several of them were well educated and could
talk a certain amount of French ; but they were ready to do
any kind of work.
What was to be done ? The difficulty was, that in order
to get away from the isolation camp in Bulgaria they had
declared themselves willing to return to Russia, with the
result that they were regarded as Bolsheviks, and no country
would have them. I spoke to Mr. RadefF, the Bulgarian
Minister in Constantinople, but he assured me that his
Government would not allow them to return on any conditions,
while the Turkish Government were equally determined that
they should not remain in Constantinople. It looked pretty
hopeless ; but wc have had many similar and even greater
dilemmas to unravel in connection with our work for the
refugees in Europe.
In the end the solution of this particular difficulty was that
wc were able, by means of the money placed at my disposal
by Mr. Chr. Erichsen, of Copenhagen, to arrange for the
temporary maintenance of the refugees. Afterwards the
big American Near East Relief organization supported them
for a couple of months on condition that a definitive settle
ment could be guaranteed within that time ; and I gave the
guarantees asked for. Finally, France was induced to take
a small number of the refugees who were good workers ; and
on my earnest representations the Soviet Government in
Moscow kindly agreed to take the rest on condition the
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