Former Underground Editor Asks Help for European Universities

"European students are trying desperately to prepare themselves for the leadership expected of them," said Otto Borch, University of Copenhagen student in an exclusive interview with a CRIMSON representative last night.

Borch, who helped edit an underground newspaper in Denmark during the Nazi occupation, stressed the tremendous amount of reconstruction to be done before Continental universities resume even a semblance of their former stature. As an example, he cited the University of Warsaw, where only one of 48 buildings remains intact after the devastation wrought by the Nazis. The lone survivor, ironically, is the University library, without its books.

The desperate shortage of books is one of the greatest hindrances to the re-emergence of the European educational system. In most universities in Poland the only "textbooks" available are lecture notes taken by the students.

Borch is in the United States as one of seven European students who are being sent throughout the country by the World Student Service Fund in an attempt to acquaint American students with the plight of the future leaders of Europe.