There is no significant historical lesson to be learnt from the narrative which follows, except the lesson of human endurance. The Twentieth Century, even more than any age before, is the age of the refugee. In almost every instance, the refugee instinct is spontaneous — unpremeditated — disorganised; it is individual, or familial. Nobody directs the refugee to depart; no regular organisation assists him on his way; and when he arrives eventually at his destination, nobody really wants him to stay. The refugee who is assisted to settle in a new environment, or the refugee who is expedited back to his former home, are the exceptions to the normal rule that once people become refugees they never entirely lose that status. The refugee is the world's most unwanted man. But somehow he survives. The present narrative is a story of survival.