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Just outside the town of Ortez (Landes) there is a camp of 87‘people3 of whom 35 are children. It presents a more cheerful picture, sinceéitiis situated in a small country house and surrounded by open ‘ land.’ The director of the camp, who was formerly an employee of one of the ministries in Barcelona, and his wife, have organised things well, and the rooms are clean and uell—kept. «The mayor of Ortezrgot_a squad of men

<te clean up the house before the refugees arrived, and procured a few beds,

although most of the refugees sleep on the floor.. A Spanish teacher holds elasses morning and afternoon, and some school supplies have been donated by the local teachers‘ union; Additional beds, blankets and shoes for both women and children would make this campus quite habitable place.

Just outside the village of Merlaas (Basses Pyrenees) is a camp of sifity children, all of them.orphans or separated from.their families, who formerly lived in a childrenls colony near Gerena in Spain. Five women, the of them teachers, look after the children.. They are housed in a country house with extensive grounds around it. The women have made a heroic attempt to make the place clean and habitable, and althoughjthere are no beds or mattresses, blankets are tucked neatly around the straw in the daytime, to keep it in place. The rooms are decorated with the children's

idrawings, most of which show different phases of their journey out of Spain:

a bombardment in Tarragona, where they all rushed for the underground shelter, the journey through the mountains, huddled around a fire Waiting to cross the frontier§“and finally, a rather idealized version of their present home.

lThere is one stuffed animal, brought somehow edt er Spain in spite of b0mbard~

ments and chaos. The children have made some toys out of bits of Wood and

pine—cones, and a branch and some string has become a bow and error.

Five of the children are in the hospital at nnrlaas filth bad cases

5 of scabies. Many of the others have scabies to a lesser extent. All need

clothing and shoes. The_3light of the women is worse., They have taken all

V the bits of material they could lay hands on to make little shirts or dlesses

for the youngsters, on the sewing machine donated by a Woman from.Mbrlaas. Consequently they are practically in rags. One of the teachers had a single garment, a gray flannel affair which was once a dressing gown but new served as a dress. She didn't mention the needs of the«groWnrups, though. The children came first. ~

At Pontenx des Forges, a little town in the turpentine forests of Landes, an old saw—mill houses almost seven hundred refugees; of whom.

‘ ehalf are children. The huge building has no windows, but is lighted by

skylights and is divided into large dormitories by six~foot-high partitions. A narroW—gauge railway truck runs through the building still.M ”'

a Each dormitory holds more than a hundred women and children. They are badly crowded; and in wet weather the place is jammed with children

’ playing underfoot, old or sick Women lying on the elank beds, young boys playing tag, Women sitting about with nethingtto dog...

- nThree pumps and a nearby stream serve the whole camp. There are

no showers. A.barracks of rough boards has been built for an infirmary,

and two Spanish nurses have made the place as neat as possible by lining the walls with brown paper. They have one white overall apiece, are bare~

llegged,and~wearing.ragged‘sandals. fThe young French doctor who visits the

cam every day praised them highly for their work and asbl left, asked me especially to try to get some uniforms for theme

There has been a serious outbreak of intestinal fever in the camp, and the doctor admitted that recovery was hopelessly slow because of the inadequate diet. One small boy of ten is suffering so badly from.mal~ nutrition that he has been in bed for a month, too weak to walk around.