Many Americans, who were in Germany before the war, were forced for various reasons to remain here. Some were victims of the Gestapo or German concentration camps, some were in hospitals, or too ill to return, others were hard-pressed for money or the price of a ticket back home.

Some had unfortunate marriages from which they could not escape. Maybe one asks why we came here in the first place? Why does, anyone ever go to Europe, or travel at all? The great ocean liners were always packed with American tourists before the war, traveling to all parts of the Continent. Some came to study, some just for pleasure or sightseeing, some to visit relatives, some on business, some to work, some to visit Universities, and some were commercial travelers or journalists. Conditions before the war were different, no one knew what the years following 1939 would bring. To broaden one's outlook by travel, to get to know and understand one's fellow beings in all parts of the world does not make one less an American. And that it was natural many of us would be left behind when war broke out, was unavoidable.

Let me say now, that no-one loves his country as much as he who has been separated from it. Every tree, every blade of grass, every, particle of brown earth becomes sacred to him - the very air is holy. His own, his native land, the land that lies buried deep in his heart. In every waking hour he dreams of it - all the magnificence of its cities all the familiar, homely places, visions rise to torment him in his nostalgia, every fibre of his being aches with his loneliness. He is alone in the world, cut off from his native land, alone amidst a crowd of pushing, jostling, fighting humanity, a world in which he has neither kith nor kindred, no friends, no ties, no obligations of any sort even the language grating unpleasantly on his ears, everywhere but home is exile to him - he is an alien on alien soil, and filled with a passionate longing to return. I claim that such United States subjects, when forcibly separated from their own country, learn to love and appreciate their country more, and make the best citizenes because America is in their hearts.

Here in Germany today, our Allies, the Russians, Poles, Belgians, French, Czcheks, Dutch, etc. all enjoy the fullest protection and consideration from the American authorities, but American citizens are not even recognized. All the aforementioned have good living quarters in camps, or homes requisitioned from the Germans by the American Military Government. And receive good substantial food - three meals a day including white bread, Jam. Their children were given toys to play with, and they were even supplied with entertainment. Everything, in fact, to make them happy.

If they do not wish to return to their native lands in transports, they are not obliged to do so, and can remain here enjoying, all the protection and privileges denied to any single American citizen. Their vitamins and calories are checked on, they receive fresh fruit and vegetables, and quantities of fresh fish. No American enjoys any of these benefits. German food tickets are issued to Americans, and no dIstinction is made between an American citizen and a defeated German. Unlike Germans who have the advantage of small kitchen gardens, with fruit trees, or relatives in the country to whom they can go to supplement their rations, Americans must survive on the barest of possible rations, with insufficent calories. Even the movies are denied to Americans, unless they are in uniform. I know the case of one young American girl here, who looks to the future with despair. She was born in the United States of America and came to Germany when she was thirteen years olds to visit her grandmother. Being ill with Scarlet Fever when the war broke out, she could not return, and for years afterwards suffered from the effects of the disease. Her grandmother's home was bombed, her grandmother killed, all their furniture, clothing, and possessions lost, and now at nineteen years of age, this young girl finds herself alone in an enemy country, without friends and relatives, money, or protection of any sort, and cannot got back to her parents in the States. She cannot return to the United States to marry or raise American children, or enjoy any of the priviledges of her American birthright. What does the future hold for her, if she is obliged to remain here for years, perhaps?