Percy Bartlett. They travelled carrying the Fellowship's messages around Europe, in Scandinavia, Central Europe, Poland, the Baltic States and the Balkans, giving life to several international conferences that took place between the two world wars. The first one gathered 200 delegates from 20 nations (also India, Burma and Ukraine) in Sonntagberg in Austria. Many others followed and, in such a tense historical moment, IFOR members discussed about the necessity of disarmament and of a new role of Churches, asking clergymen to make a strong stand against the idea of "righteous wars". In 1932, the IFOR led a Youth Crusade across Europe in support of the Geneva World Disarmament Conference. Protestants and Catholics from all over converged on Geneva by various routes, reaching over 50,000 people and presenting to the Conference a petition calling for total disarmament among the nations. Ambassadors of Reconciliation At the end of the 1930s, given the unstable international situation, IFOR established Embassies of Reconciliation that initiated peace efforts not only in Europe but in Japan and China as well. "Ambassadors of Reconciliation", such as George Lansbury, Muriel Lester and Anne Seesholtz, visited many world leaders, including Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Leon Blum and Franklin D Roosevelt. Muriel Lester, English social worker, served as IFOR travelling secretary throughout the world, helping to establish its work in many countries. She met Mahatma Gandhi, first in London when, in 1931, he spent some time at Kingsley Hall, a community center with educational, social and recreational purposes, run by her and her sister Doris, and then in India when she went with him in Bihar on his anti-untouchability tour during 1934. When World War II broke out, travels and communications became almost impossible. In many countries IFOR members suffered persecution for publicly preaching pacifism. IFOR's members, especially in America tried by inter-church mediation to find ways of ending the war, to help conscientious objectors, and struggled against internment of Japanese Americans. In France, IFOR members André and Magda Trocmé, with the help of the villagers of le Chambon sur Lignon, saved the lives of thousands of Jews escaping the Holocaust. In Belgium, feminist Magda Yoors Peeters defends Jewish refugees and conscientious objectors. Supporting nonviolent movements around the world After the war, travelling secretaries continued their work. IFOR branches and affiliates in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East grew consistently also thanks to the work of Jean Goss and