1 October 1945

New Zealand Interns Conscientious Objectors

Pacifists in New Zealand were forced to lead an illegal underground existence during the Second World War. The first legal issue of the New Zealand Christian Pacifist appeared in October 1945 and it contains complaints about the subject. About 700 conscientious objectors spent the war years in camps. A dangerous precedent: 'By conditioning people to allow this mild and "legal" form of detention, a government can too easily establish the basis for building a Bergen Belsen or Buchenwald.'

Today in the Biographies Dutch Labour Movement