Friends Relief Service
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The Friends Relief Service (FRS) was a voluntary humanitarian relief organisation formally established by a committee of Britain Yearly Meeting in November 1940. The organisation had three changes of name: Friends War Victims Relief Committee (November 1940 - February 1942); Friends War Relief Service (February 1942 - September 1943) and the Friends Relief Service (September 1943 - May 1948).[1] Largely staffed by pacifists and conscientious objectors, its aim was to provide humanitarian relief and social welfare to civilians affected by World War II. Key areas of operation included British cities during The Blitz and refugee camps throughout north-west Europe, the Balkans and the Middle-East. One of its teams was also amongst the first humanitarian groups to reach Bergen-Belsen concentration camp [2]. The FRS was closed down on May 29th 1948.
Origins and establishment
When the Blitz began on 7 September 1940 there was no official Quaker body capable of acting in response, nor any Quaker organisation through which British Friends could make any relief contributions. Two groups of concerned Friends from the Friends' Ambulance Unit (FAU) and the Bedford Institute Association, who were already in East London, began to offer aid in the bomb shelters and to assist in organising evacuations. The work was hampered, however, by a lack of formal arrangements to mobilise available resources. Representatives of the FAU, the Bedford Institute Association and other action groups met and made a request for the establishment of an official committee to take responsibility for the spontaneous Quaker relief action that they had started[1].
After consideration, the Britain Yearly Meeting executive committee, Meeting for Sufferings, decided to establish an official Friends War Victims Relief Committee on the 1st of November 1940. It was the fifth committee of its kind established by Quakers, there had been previous civilian relief committees established in the Franco-Prussian War, theRusso-Turkish War (1877–1878) the First Balkan War and World War I[3].
References
- ^ a b Wilson, Roger C. (1952). Quaker Relief: An account of the relief work of the Society of Friends 1940-1948. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
- ^ Archive, Belsen Online (2022-06-24). "Friends Relief Service - Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp". Retrieved 2022-09-16.
- ^ Greenwood, Ormerod (1975). Friends and relief : a study of two centuries of Quaker activity in the relief of suffering caused by war or natural calamity. York: William Sessions Ltd. ISBN 0-900657-29-4. OCLC 1441581.