大象传媒

At Meon Road Infants school [or it may have been Milton Primary school] at the end of the war we were told that a boy from Europe was coming to join our school, as a refugee or Displaced Person [DP]. We were told to be nice to him as he had lost everything in the war and did not speak English.
When he arrived, it was just like putting a fox in a chicken run. As small boys we were all used to fighting each other, but somehow instinctively knew when to stop or hold back. The new boy of course soon got into playground fights, as normal, but he had no idea of restraint, and would do his best to seriously injure and completely demolish his opponent with no holds barred - I now realise it was only luck that no-one was killed. Looking back, I think he had been through such terrible experiences in Europe that he had learnt that the only way to survive was by behaving like a wild animal in the jungle. After only a few days he was taken away from our school, without any information about his future. I can only hope he received some kindness and care to enable him to rejoin normal life. I suspect that treatment for mental trauma was not really advanced or freely available in those days. There must have been many more like him - adults as well as children.

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