THE DISILLUSIONED: TWELVE MILLION REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81-01043R004100140007-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 104
• Document Creation Date: December 23, 2016
• Document Release Date: April 3, 2014
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: January 1, 1959
• Content Type: REPORT

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Twelve Million Refugees
From Communism
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THE DISILLUSIONED:
TWELVE MILLION REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
Compiled and Edited
By MARK PIROS
October 1959
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FOREWORD
"THE DISILLUSIONED: TWELVE MILLION REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM," is a compilation of
twenty-nine articles about those who have fled from Communist-controlled areas since
the end of World War Two. Some of the articles are first-hand accounts, dramatically
told by the escapees themselves.
The series sheds light on the overwhelming compulsions which cause men, women and
children to flee from their homelands, often at risk to their lives. Portrayed here
is the sorrow, the fear -- and finally the joy of escape -- experienced by this vast
multitude of twelve million, a total greater than the entire nine million population
of the Soviet satellite of Hungary.
In Century of the Homeless Man, the noted writer El fan Rees observes that "It is one
of the tragedies of the refugee problem that so much of it is the consequence of, and
incidental to, world-shaking events whose progress and dangers preoccupy the public
mind to the exclusion of all thought for and often any recognition of their human
consequences."
This, then, is an attempt to put on the record the results of some of these events:
the story of the twelve million persons who escaped their Communist-ruled homelands
to live in freedom.
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"It is not the hero, not the personality, but the people, who are the moving force
of history."
-- I. E. Petrov,
Soviet Historian
July 9, 1953
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART 1: THE ESCAPES
The Disillusioned: Twelve Million Refugees from Communism 1
Mark Piros
The Million Refugees from Cemmunist China 7
Harold C. Hinton
A Refugee's Report on Life in 4 Chinese Commune 13
Li Yu-pao
"The Communists Called Us Parasites..." 20
Don Carlos
The European Refugees in China 23
Merle Parker
The Refugee Flight from Communist North Korea 29
Merle Parker
1 Chose Freedom in South Korea 34
Jai Duk Han
Operation Exodus: The Flight of a Million Vietnamese from Communism 39
Merle Parker
The Newest Escape from Communism: The Refugees from Tibet 47
Merle Parker
The Tibetan Refugees Speak 52
From a report by the International Commission of Jurists
Soviet Official Tells Why He Sought Political Asylum 59
Alexander Urevitch Kaznacheev
The Greatest Flight from Communism: 3,500,000 Leave East Germany 65
George Bailey
The Road to Berlin 73
Norman Cousins
An East German Family Crashes Through the Iron Curtain 83
Mark Piros
The 200,000 Hungarians Who Made History 89
Mark Piros
We Fled the Communist Border We Were Guarding 95
Miklos Pal oczy
"All Bulgarians Would Escape if They Could" 99
Mark Piros
Escape From Communist Albania 105
Mark Piros
I Flew a Glider Out of Communist Czechoslovakia 112
Jiri Kinski
Why I Left Rumania 118
Vasile Berkovic
PART II: THE RESULTS
Why They Fled: A New Analysis of the 200,000 Hungarian Refugees 123
Dr. Lawrence E. Hinkle, Jr.
What the Loss of Refugees Does to a Communist Country: 129
A Report of the Population Reference Bureau
The Soviet Redefection Campaign, i
Its Successes and Failures 132
From the Report of the 7ellerbach Commission, "Refugees n Europe."
What Happens to Refugees Who Go Home 137
A Report by the International League for the Rights of Man
PART III: RESETTLEMENT
Building a New Life: The Resettlement of the Refugees from Communism
Mark Piros
The Resettlement of a Hungarian University in Canada
George S. Allen and Kalman Roller
Father Pire: Nobel Prizewinner for Refugee Work
Anne Burns
Success in the Free World: Hungarian General Becomes Teacher
Fred Brewer
A Building in Darkness
Stanley J. C. Wright
149
159
169
175
181
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PART!
THE ESCAPES
"The refugee is the victim of man's inhumanity to man. His presenct
in Europe and elsewhere in the world Is the tragic outcome of political
upheavals followed by intolerance, despotism and persecution.... The
setting up of new regimes in the Eastern European countries and the dis-
appearance from the map of a number of states made millions of these
persons decide not to accept life under the new regimes in their home
countries."
11111=1111?111M,
? from A_Uni_t_act_Nations Plan for
Refugees, published by the Office
OTThe UN High Commissioner for
Refugees, Geneva
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er.
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4 x113, '13,
Despite the barbed wire and other obstacles which encircle the countries of the
Sino-Soviet orbit, in the thirteen years since ths end of World War Il more than
twelve million persons have fled from the Soviet Union, Communist China and the
areas they control.
This is a section of the Communist-erected "Iron Curtain" which divides the Soviet-
controlled Zone of Germany from the free German Federal Republic.
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One of the most dramatic of all mass
defections from communism was the
exodus of nearly 200,000 Hungarians
after Soviet armed forces crushed
their country's freedom uprising of
October 1956.
Here two Hungarian refugees embrace
on meeting in Vienna in December
1956.
In early 1959 the Chinese
Communist subjugation of
Tibet, and the flight of the
Dalai Lama, resulted in the
influx of more than 15,000
Tibetans into India.
A three-year-old Tibetan
child smiles as he holds a
man-sized cup of tea at a
Tibetan refugee camp in
Misamari, India. He was
the first small child to
arrive there with the
refugees. The youngster's
parents, Tibetan farmers,
left their country after
the unsuccessful insur-
rection in Lhasa against the
occupation forces of Com-
munist China.
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THE DISILLUSIONED: 12 MILLION REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
By Mark Piros
(Writer on East European affairs)
One of the most dramatic indictments of life under communism is the
never-ending flow of refugees from the countries of the Sino-Soviet bloc.
Despite the thousands of miles of barbed wire and other obstacles
which encircle the Communist-ruled areas, more than twelve million persons
have managed to escape since the end of World War II. They have fled from the
Soviet Union, Communist China, and the areas they control: Albania, Bulgaria,
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Rumania, Estonia, Latvia,
Lithuania, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Tibet.
Despite many near-insurmountable obstacles, and the hardships involved
in leaving one's native land, these people have abandoned their homes or farms,
most of their possessions, and left jobs and sometimes even family members, for
the chance to live in freedom.
Yet they are only a small percentage of those who would leave if there
were no border barriers. There are more refugees in intent than there are in
fact.
Four of the Communist-ruled countries have lost more than a million
citizens each to the free world: East Germany, Communist China, North Korea,
and North Vietnam.
What has been called the greatest sustained movement of refugees in
modern history_is continuing for the thirteenth year out of Communist East
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THE DISILLUSIONED: 12 MILLION REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
Germany. Since the end of World War II, more than three and a half million
citizens of the Soviet-controlled Zone and East Berlin have gone to live and
work in the free west.
The East German population is being whittled steadily by an exodus
averaging around 3,000 weekly. The total number of refugees who have left the
Soviet Zone and East Berlin since 1945 amounts to almost 20 percent of that
area's population, and makes Communist East Germany the only area in continental
Europe with a declining population. In addition to the hundreds of East Germans
who daily seek sanctuary in West Berlin, recently some hundreds of Czechs and
Hungarians have been coming into the estern sector of the city after entering
East Germany with Communist-approved passports.
Although it is even more difficult to escape from Communist China
than from most other countries of the Sino-Soviet bloc, three million Chinese
have left the mainland since the Communists began their conquest. The estimated
1,000,000 of these Chinese refugees who have settled in Hong Kong-Macao form
the largest single bloc of anti-Communist refugees in the world. The current
influx of refugees into Hong Kong is estimated at about 100,000 per year, but
it is becoming increasingly difficult to leave the mainland.
There are also in Communist China about 9,000 White Russians who
have not yet been able to leave the country, but who have informed the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that they wish, to do so. They fled from
communism once before, following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, and settled for
the most part in Manchuria and Northeast China. Recent developments, both
political and economic, within Communist China make the position of these residual
refugees more precarious than ever.
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THE DISILLUSIONED: 12 MILLION REFUGEES FROM COYMUNISM
When the Soviet-controlled North Korean regime was formed north of
the 38th parallel in May 1948, another great exodus from communism began.
Within two years, 1.8 million residents of the Communist zone, out of a total
population of 9 million, migrated southward to the republic of Korea.
In June of 1950, when the Communist armies of North Korea invaded
the Republic of Korea, the refugee flight continued. Within seven months an
additional 800,000 Koreans escaped to the south.
When an armistic was signed on July 27, 1953, after three years of
war, 7,731 North Korean prisoners of war refused repatriation to Communist
North Korea. Thousands of North Korean and Chinese soldiers also refused to
go home when the war ended_
Almost exactly a year later, in July 1954, when Vietnam was
partitioned dnd the Communists took full control of the northern part of that
country, there began a similar but even more rapid mass movement of persons to
freedom. Although the Communist Viet Minh dishonored their own signatures to
the Geneva Armistice agreement, which permits freedom of movement, and did
everything possible to stop the refugee flow, within ten months nearly one
million Vietnamese had fled from the Communist-controlled north to the free
south.
Perhaps the most dramatic of all mass defections from Communist
rule was the exodus of nearly 200,000 Hungarians who fled after Soviet troops
and tanks crushed their national freedom revolution of October 1956. To
escape from the Soviet-imposed regime of terror which followed the uprising,
thousands of men, women and children sacrificed everything they possessed and
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THE DISILLUSIONED: 12 MILLION REFUGEES PROM COMMUNISM
risked death or imprisonment to flee to Austria or Yugoslavia. Most of the
Hungarian refugees were eventually re-settled in free world countries. .
Besides those Hungarians who ,:are oc.4 in late 1956 and early 1957,
an additional 200,000 have fled in other years since Hungary became a Soviet
satellite in 1947.
The list of post-World War II refugees from the Sino-Soviet bloc
also includes 290,000 from the Soviet Union; 200,000 from the once-independent
Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; 400,000 Karelians who moved
to Finland when the Karelian Isthmus was ceded to the USSR; 638,000 from Poland;
187,000 from Communist Bulgaria (including some 175,000 ethnic Turks who fled
to Turkey after World War II when Bulgaria was undergoing its worst period of
forced collectivization and religious persecution); 76,000 former citizens of
Communist Czechoslovakia; 53,000 Rumanians; and 18,000 Albanians.
The most recent major refugee-producing development has been Communist
China's brutal subjugation of Tibet. The flight of the Dalai Lama added drama
to the movement of some 15,000 Tibetans into India. This, combined with an
estimated 6,000 who escaped prior to the Tibetan revolt, brings to 21,000 the
number of Tibetans who have fled Chinese Communist control of their homeland.
That the constant flow of refugees produces a continuing strain upon
the security systems of the Sino-Soviet orbit countries is best illustrated by
the elaborate and expensive border control obstacles and guard units established
to bar the way to freedom.
Other negative consequences for the Communist regimes include the
loss of "face" caused by the flight of so many millions and the loss of skilled
manpower (particularly important in the case of East Germany).
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THE DISILLUSIONED: 12 MILLION REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
Although millions of refugees already have found new homes, with
the assistance of governments, private organizations and individuals throughout
the free world, the general exoctue from the Sino-Soviet orbit countries --
despite attempts by the Communist regimes to stop it -- shows few signs of
abating. This over-all trend continues to be one of the most obvious in-
dications of the discontent which prevails among large sections of the popu-
lation in areas under Communist rule.
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Since the Communists began
their take-over of China,
more than 3,000,000 Chinese
have escaped through the
narrow exits avOlable to
them, altho it is even more
difficult to escape from
mainland China than from most
other Communist countries.
The flow was largest for the
first few years after 1949,
while the Communists were
liquidating real and sus-
pected opponents. Here
throngs of middle-class
Chinese cross Soochow Creek
in Shanghai after that
section had fallen to the
Communists in 1949.
The largest single group of
anti-Communist refugees in
the world are today settled
in Hong Kong -- one million
of the three million escapees
from Communist China.
Some recent refugees 4re
shown here. Living in shacks
jammed against the walls of
buildings in the overcrowded
city, their faces neverthe-
less show their happiness on
escaping from Communist-
controlled China.
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THE THREE MILLION REFUGEES FROM COMMUNIST CHINA
By Harold C. Hinton
(Dr. Hinton, a specialist on China, wrote the section
on that country in Major Governments of Asia by George
Kahl% published by the Cornell University Press in
New York. He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree
in Far Eastern History from Harvard University, has
taught at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.,
and also did research at Cambridge and lectured at
Oxford University.)
It is even more difficult to escape from Mainland China than
from most other Communist countries. About two-thirds of China's land
frontier joins with other Communist-controlled .countries -- North Korea,
the Soviet Union, Outer Mongolia, and North Vietnam. Even if a refugee
succeeded in escaping across these portions of the frontier, which for
the most part are tightly guarded on both sides, he would be jumping
from the frying pan into the fire.
For this reason, no movement of refugees is known to be occur-
ring across these sections of the Chinese frontier. In addition that
part of the frontier which runs from Kashmir to northern Burma is so
mountainous as to be out of the question except for mountain dwellers
like the Tibetan
refugees who have fled to India. For practical pur-
poses, refugees from Communist China can escape only to Burma, Laos, the
Portuguese colony of Macao off the China coast, and Hong Kong.
Because of the personal freedom, economic opportunity, and
accessibility to the outside world which it offers, Hong Kong has long
served as a haven for emigrants from the mainland of China. The flaw
grew to sizable proportions during the Chinese civil war of 1945-49 when
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THE THREE MILLION REFUGEES FROM COMMUNIST CHINA ?
the Communists began their takeover. It remained large for a few years
afterward, while the Chinese Communists were in the process of establish-
ing their control over the mainland and liquidating real and suspected
opponents. It included businessmen and intellectuals from centers like
Shangl-ai, where Communist rule bore heavily on such people. More recent--:
ly, as it has become increasingly difficult to cross Communist-controlled
territory without authorization, which is extremely difficult to secure,
the flow has tended to come almost exclusively from the neighboring pro-
vince of Kwangtung.
The current influx of refugees into Hong Kong is estimated at
about 100,000 per year. It is composed mainly of Kwangtung peasants and
small businessmen fleeing the "people's communes" and other manifesta-
tions of the "great leap forward" that has racked the mainland of China
since the spring of 1958. This movement of refugees is not the result
of any encouragement by the government of Hong Kong; on the contrary the
British, because of extremely aver-crowded living conditions in Hong
Kong, find it necessary to enforce fairly stringent immigration restric-
tions. If it were not for this, the movement of Chinese refugees into
the 'city would undoubtedly be many times greater than it is now. At
present about one-third of Bong Kong's total , -11 -tion of more than
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three million consists
largest single bloc of
Although the
of refugees from the Chinese mainland -- the
anti-Communist refugees in the world.
vast majority of the refugees who have come to
Hong Kong have been Chinese, there has also been a flow of non-Chinese
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THE THREE MILLION R3FUGEES FROM COMMUNIST CHINA
out of China. Of particular interest is the case of some 20,000 Russians
who went to China (mainly Manchuria) after 1917 as refugees from com-
munism in their own country, only to be caught by its Chinese version
after 1949. About 12,000 have succeeded in getting out of China, mainly
through Hong Kong. The others, who refuse to return to the Soviet Union
and still remain under Chinese Communist control, are largely unemployed
and in some cases have been moved from their homes to remote areas such
as Sinkiang.
Because it is smaller, more crowded and offers fewer economic
opportunities, Macao holds much less attractiveness for refugees and has
received far fewer of them (approximately 150,000 to 200,000) than has
Hong Kong. More than 1,600 Chinese, most of them farmers, have fled to
Macao since the commune system became Communist policy in September 1958.
Many of them left behind on the mainland their families and personal
belongings. Among others who have gone to Macao are a group of 120 Hind
Chinese whom the Chinese Communists deported in 1958. Presumably they
were unable to work and the regime, not wanting either to care for them
or to bear the onus of liquidating them, found a convenient solution to
its problem in this way.
For various geographic and political reasons, the Chinese com-
munity in Burma is the only one in Southeast Asia that has grown signif-
icantly since World Ur II through immigration, as well as by natural
increase. The census of 1941 put the Chinese community in Burma at
300,000. In 1953 the Burmese government, on the basis of a sampling of
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THE THREE MILLION REFUGEES FROM COMMUNIST CHINA
15 percent of the population, estimated the Chinese community at 6 per-
cent of the total, or slightly over one million. There is no way of
determining what part of the increase represents persons who have en-
tered the country since 1949, but the number must be substantial.; a
reasonable guess would be 100,000 to 150,000.
Nor have all the arrivals in Burma been Chinese, for Yunnan
contains a considerable population of tribesmen belonging to minority
nationalities. Their customs and language have little or nothing in
common with those of their Chinese rulers. In the spring of 1958
the Chinese Communists launched a harsh drive against traditional reli-
gion, including the religion and customs of these Yunnanese tribesmen.
This campaign was soon reinforced by the drive for the formation of
"peoples communes," in the course of which Chinese Communist cadres
and troops arrested a number of tribal chiefs, touched off a wave of
suicides, and set a new wave of refugees in notion toward the Burmese
frontier.
To escape the communes a sizeable number of tribesmen, in-
cluding entire families in some cases, fled to Burma even through the
heavy rains of the monsoon season. On November 19, 1958, the New China
News Agency reported that 77 percent of the tribesmen in Yunnan were in
"people's communes." It seems likely that once the communes are firmly
established, escape to Burma will be more difficult and the flow of refu-
gees will diminish. The present population of the Kachin and Shan States
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THE THREE MILLION REFUGEES FROI1 COMUNIST CHINA
in Burma, which border on Yunnan, includes about 100,000 to 150,000
Chinese and approximately 50,000 tribesmen from Yunnan (Shan, Lisu,
etc.).
The nature and causes of the movement of refugees from Yunnan
into Laos are very similar to the case of Burma. The anti-religious
and commune campaigns of 1958 touched off a flow of tribesmen (mainly
Shan, Yao, and Miao) into the valleys of Laos near the Chinese frontier.
The total influx to date probably amounts to about 30,000.
Some 2,000,000 of the refugees from Communist China in the last
fourteen years have gone to Formosa; perhaps 100,000 or less have ulti-
mately gone on to Japan, other parts of Southeast Asia, the United States,
Brazil and Europe.
Recent refugees from China report that Communist officials on
patrol boats on the West and Pearl Rivers are shooting anyone attempting
to escape to Macao
Early in
Kwangtung Province
or Hong Kong.
June of 1959, eight-four refugees from a commune in
reached Macao in four fishing junks, the largest single
group of refugees to reach Macao in several months. They said 36 others
who fled with them have not been heard from and were doubtless caught by
Communist patrols. The refugees, as have most recent ones, attributed
their flight to the worsening food shortages in Communist China. The
spokesman for the group said, "We were all practically starving to death."
Another refugee said "The food shortage is the worst in ten years. The
meat ration was down to eight ounces a month when we left, and there was
no beef, eggs or fish, and very few vegetables."
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THE THREE MILLION REFUGEES FROM COMMUNIST CHINA
Several thousand fishermen who have taken refuge in Macao said
they fled their Communist-controlled homeland because of high taxes on
their catches. Most refugees, however, give as the reason for their
flight the imposition of the communes with the subsequent disruption of
family life.
The fact that such an astonishing number of refugees as
3,000,000 have escaped from Communist China through the narrow exits
available to them bears testimony not only to their courage and opposi-
tion to communism, and to the true state of affairs in the mainland of
China, but to the strong probability that if the exits were easier and
more numerous the flow would be greater still.
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A REFUGEE'S REPORT ON LIFE IN A CHINESE COMMUNE
By Li Yu-pao
(Li Yu-pao? a 23-year old peasant from Chungshan
county, KWangtung Province, is one of the thousands who fled the
mainland after the commune system was introduced by the Chinese
Communist regime in 1958.)
I came to Macao with my wife, my year-old son, my cousin
and his year-old son -- all packed in one sampan -- on April 25, 1959.
The idea of escape had long been in Dv mind, but the final de-
cision to run the risk came about by accident. One day, my cousin dropped
into my village in Communist China on official business; he was there to
peddle fish spawn for the marine products department of his commune. Since
we were childhood friends and knew each other quite well, we generally
talked to each other about everything we could think of.
This time I was rather caught in a mixed feeling of fear and joy
when he made it clear that he was ready to flee to Macao and wanted me to
share the adventure. Since the decision had to be made almost on the spot,
I nodded in consent without even blinking my eyes. The thing that really
spurred me to be so desperate was that living conditions had been rapidly
getting worse ever since the commune gysten was brought into effect several
months ago. On that very evening, we took a sampan of the commune and
managed to row into the Macao waters. We were lucky -- others have been
killed while making the same attempt.
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A REFUGEE'S REPORT ON LIFE INA CHINESE COMMUNE
The commune in our area was started in late October of 1958.
At first, it had three townships under its control; this was increased
to seven or eight with a-total-population of about 50,000, including our
village of some 3,000 people.
The head of our township was Chief Wang; you might say that he
had been elected, but we voters were may allowed to make our choice
among a few officially-chosen candidates -- a "guided election."
A candidate must be an "activist" or, better still, a loyal
Communist Party member. He must blindly follow the Party line and merci-
lessly report and eavesdrop on his neighbors, relatives and even on his
own family members.
The township also had a militia corps. Chief Wang was the
"battalion commander"; the commune director, (the "Sheh Chang") is the
regimental commander. There are seven companies in the battalion; each
company is led by one commander and two deputy commanders who are appointed
by the battalion commander. The size of the company ranges from 300 to
400 members; the next lower unit under the company is called "Haiao Tsu"
(or team) which consists of 20 to 30 persons.
The team leaders are picked by the company commanders from among
the activists; their appointment must be approved by the battalion commander:
Men from 18 to 45 must join the militia. The training is directed
by the army. The annual training usually lasts ten days. All farm work
during the training period must be done in the evenings, as the daytime
is consumed on the drill ground.
el"
S.
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A REFUGEE'S REPORT ON LIFE IN A CHINESE COMMUNE
The commune system is the worst thing that we have had since the
Communists took over China. Most people could not refuse to join when told
to al so; however, some people are not allowed to join, such as former land-
lords and minor former Nationalist officials. But this doesn't mean they
don't have to work. On the contrary, the commune assigns them to take up
heavy labor under bad weather conditions -- during storms, heavy rain, or
freezing night.
The commune was organized by just one mass meeting. The leading
official simply told the audience that at the conclusion of the meeting
all the cooperatives of our village would be united into a new organization
called "commune," a term new to all of us. At first we thought it just
another method to broaden the regime's control over production; we hardly
realized how much it would mean to our living conditions. In fact, some
villagers were joyful over this announcement which was made very tempting
by an official promise that from then on we all could eat as much as we
wanted in the commune messhall.
For nearly two months the state kept its promise. We had free
meals and the rice ration was temporarily called off. But later facts
proved that this is just a short-lived bait.
Atter the commune was established, all members had to turn over
to the commune all their farm tools. The commune claims ownership over
anything that is registered with it. When the work day starts, the orig-
inal owner may take out whatever tools he needs for the day and return the
same to the commune's storehouse in the evening. In case of damage, the
user has to pay for repair charges.
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4.-
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A REFUGEE 'S REPORP ON LIFE IN A CHINESE COMMUNE
The first few months of commune life we were paid according to
eight grades, ranging from approximately two yuan to eight yuan a month
(approximately one to four U.S. dollars). I received Y4.50 monthly as a
grade-4 worker. But I must point out that nearly one-half of the amount
had to be left in the local bank; that is an order applying to all members.
This pay system, however, was replaced by the "work point" system.in early
March of 1959.
I don't know exactly how regime officials assess the "work point,"
but I could accumulate as many as 200 "work points" per month to be paid
at 3.5 cents (Communist currency) per point. In other words, I earned a
bit more than under the previous pay scale. However, the worst part of
this system is that you are not paid until after the season's harvest.
From the time the system began until my escape on April 25, 1959 I 'worked
nearly two months without pay.
Even under the 8-grade scale, pay day was a mystery to all, for
the amount of cash to be paid to each member was to be entirely dependent
upon sales of the commune's by-products. In our commune those included
shrimp-catching and duck-raising. The commune assigns these light jobs
to the aged and physically weak members. When the products are sold, the
profit is supposed to be paid to the members as part of their wage.
Under ordinary circumstances, the work day begins at 5 a.m. and
ends at 9 p.m. When transplanting of rice shoots got underway, we had to
start work at 3 a.m. and continue to midnight. When an "emulation drive"
was on, we kept the work going on a round-the-clock schedule.
16
A REFUGEE'S REPORT ON LIFE IN A CHINESE COMMUNE
Two meals were served, at 10 a.m. and 7 p.m., with a per-meal
rice ration of five hang (Chinese ounces). Under normal conditions all
have their meals in the commune messhall? but meals are served right in
the fields during harvest time.
The ration wasn't enough even for a small person, and as for side
dishes, we considered ourselves lucky when given a little vegetable.
Before the Communists came to power, my parents were tenant
farmers; we rented about 20 mou (one-third acre) of paddy-field, and father
said we always had enough to eat; we even managed to have eggs, pork, fresh
and salt fish from time to time.
People 65 years of age or older receive only three ounces of rice
per meal, but they don?t have to work in the fields; if they wish they can
make a little extra money by raising ducks, tending to cattle, or baby-
sitting.
The rewards under the commune system are more honorary than mate-
rial; more and more people, however, are becoming less and less interested
in winning empty titles such as ?mod e- worker" and "labor hero." Recently
cash rewards were introduced, but the amounts involved were too small to
be tempting. For instance, a 50-cent bonus was paid to anyone capable of
transplanting rice sprouts at the speed of two mou a day, a back-breaking
quota even for the toughest worker. A "model worker" is one who can make
or exceed this quota for three consecutive days. A grade-1 model worker
is rewarded with a singlet, its front part bearing printed red characters
"Lo Tung No Fan" (model worker), plus a cash bonus.
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44.
fl
\\.
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A REFUGEE'S REPORT ON LIFE INA CHINESE COMMUNE
A labor emulation drive, or group competition, is held two to
three times a year, depending on circumstances. Generally such a drive
takes place during spring sowing or harvest time. The result is announced
at a mass meeting, and the grade of each company is indicated by various
symbols, such as a rocket, an airplane, a motorcar, a bicycle, an ox-cart,
and a turtle, all on a blackboard by the entrance of the battalion head-
quarters. There is no material reward except the now almost-meaningless
red pennant.
In the commune, it is permissible to rest only in the case of
serious illness. There is one medical clinic in every township. The one
in my hometown was poorly-equipped; it had very little medicine.
There was one grade school in town. But most parents don't want
their children to go to school for the simple reason that most of the class
hours are used in labor activities of various kinds. Since there isn't
much to learn from the school, the parents feel inclined to keep the chil-
dren under their own protection. Until my departure, the school had about
100 students. There were literacy classes and evening schools during the
initial stage of the commune. These classes were closed because of the
heavy farm work schedule. There was one library stocked with picture books
and simple reading materials, but it was seldom visited by the exhausted
laborers.
Since all able commune adults have to work in the fields, nurseries
are provided to take care of the babies and toddlers. Those working in the
1 nurseries are aged women assisted by one or two young girls having some baby-
18
A REFUGEE'S REPORT ON LIFE IN A CHINESE COMMUNE
care knowledge. At feeding time, the baby is taken to its mother in the
field. If the mother has no breast-milk the baby is fed with rice gruel,
the only infant food available.
We do not expect life to be easy as refugees in Macao, but we
know it will be better than living on a commune in Communist China.
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"THE COMMUNISTS CALLED US PARASITES..."
By Don Carlos
(Mr. Carlos is a newspaperman in Hong Kong)
"There is no room for parasites," the young Communist Chinese
officer told them. "You must leave the People's RepUblic!" They were told
to climb onto a truck. A few hours later, they were near the border of the
Portuguese colony of Macao.
The group of about twenty fortUne-tellers? beggers and musicians
was led by a six-year-old girl. They walked towards the Portuguese sentries
standing at the Barrier Gate of Macao and silently stood in the front of the
Macao Immigration officials.
"More refUgees1" said the officer in charge. -Be picked up the
registration book, and twenty more names were added to the bulky record of
150,000 to 200,000 refugees who for the last ten years have sought asylum
in Macao. But there was something different about this grourfter each
name the officer wrote in block letters, "GEGO." This is the Portuguese word
for "blind."
Since that day in August of 19572 more than 200 blind refugees have
entered Macao.
"There is little we can do for them," a Macao refugee official said.
"But it is not so much what we can give, but what they have already achieved --
their freedom!"
20
-
a "THE COMMUNISTS CALLED US PARASITES..."
To cope with the increasing number of destitute Chinese refugees
pouring into tiny Macao, the Portuguese authorities have from time to time
built small camps for the escapees. There are several such camps on the
Portuguese islands of Taipa and Coloane? less than half-a-mile away from
Macao. The blind refugees also receive assistance from a number of charity
organizations who are doing their best to cope with the situation.
Nevertheless, the refugees cannot wholly depend on what material
assistance they receive. At night, particularly in the summer, many Macao
residents, mostly Chinese, go for long walks along the "avenidas" on the new
Reclamation Area of Praia Grande. Enterprising Chinese have established open-
air cafes, where hundreds of people sit and drink tea or soft drinks. There
are juke boxes, record players, radios blaring away. Often loudspeakers from
the Communist sports-ground just over the border broadcast Chinese Communist
propaganda, and Communist songs can be heard only half a mile away. Amidst
all this noise, scores of blind refugees can be seen on sidewalks, usually
singing or playing musical instruments.
At about midnight the traders begin to fold their tents, the little
shops are locked up, lights begin to fade, and the blind refugees begin their
journey "home."
"Home" can be a corner in a small room already over-crowded by two
or three Chinese families, or some little corner in some old verandah. At
least 5C percent of their small earnings go toward rent.
The 20C Dr more blind refugees in Macao have come mainly from the
surrounding county of Chungshan4,ih Communist China.
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"THE COMMUNISTS CALLED US PARASITES..."
They don't all tell the same story. Same say they were "told to
get out." Others say simply: "I didn't want to stay there...I'm blind: but
I 'saw' much. What I 'saw' made ne unhappy. I wasn't free. So I asked
the Communists for a visa: and they gave it to me: I think gladly."
Seventy-six-year-old Wong Foo-chin: born in Shekki: Chungshan: says
that he and his family didn't suffer any bad treatment at the hands of the
Communists. "I was told that there was nothing I could do to help build New
China. It wasn't my fault: they often said that; but it wasn't their fault:
either: they also said that quite often. 'You're a useless old blind beggar...
you'll be better off in Macao, let the capitalists give you some of their money!
And we'll be better off without you here. Our food should go to those Who work
for it!' they said. So here I am!"
The future of the blind refugees can be summed up in the words of
Yung Shi-lee: a 28-year-old widow and mother of five. She says, while hugging
her youngest baby: "We live from day to day. Sometimes we are hungry. But as
long as we are alive: we can dream of better days ahead. We hope that: one
day: something goodwill happen to us. We hope. That's all... And we are
free."
22
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THE EUROPEAN REFUGFRS IN CHINA
By Merle Parker
(Commentator on Far Eastern Affairs)
It is only natural that most of today's comment about refugees
from communism is in terms of the millions who escaped from areas con-
trolled by the Soviet Union and Communist China after World War II.
For sheer drama, however, it is difficult to surpass a story
which began more than 40 years ago in the mass upheavals which accom-
panied the Bolshevik revolution of 1917.
At that time, thousands of European or White Russians, alarmed
by the early portents of Communist rule, left their native land for a new
way of life in Manchuria and China. Today the survivors and descendants
of these original Russian refugees, with the Chinese Communists now in
power, are faced with a repetition of history. Once again they are seek-
ing an escape from communism.
When the European Russins first migrated to China after 1917,
they found employment, established themselves in business and raised their
families in the new environment.
Serious problems, however, began to arise after World War II.
The Soviet Union launched an extensive "return to the homeland" campaign
designed to appeal to all persons who had ancestral ties with the USSR.
Most of the Russians in China resisted this campaign, only to find themselves
subject to new pressures when the Chinese Communists gained power in 1949.
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THE EUROPEAN REFUGWPC IN CHINA
-
In the meantime, efforts at resettlement in other countries
provided solutions for many of the Furopeans. Between 1947 and 1952, the
International Refugee Organization (IRQ) found new homes for 17,000. As
part of this operation, the IRO established a camp in the Philippine Is-
lands to which it moved some 5,500 individuals, predominantly Russians of
the Eastern Orthodox:faith. All but 130 of these were subsequently re-
settled in Australia, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile and the United States.
The 130 remaining hard-to-resettle cases eventually found a way
out of China through the World Council of Churches. In Belgium the En-
traide Protestante provided accommodation in a home for 30 elderly refugees.
France, which had already accepted over 70 persons with tuberculosis,
agreed to take in additional difficult cases. Institutions under the di-
rection of the Evangelical Church of Germany took 17. By April 1953, the
Pacific Beach Camp in the Philippines had completed its task.
Still in mainland China, however, are about 10,000 European Ref-
ugees who have informed the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
that they will not return to the USSR and wish to settle overseas. Sev-
eral hundred are past the age of 65, and it is estimated that there may be
several hundred with chronic illnesses. Many are destitute.
Recent developments, both political and economic, within Commu-
nist China have made the position of the remaining refugees more precarious
than ever, The Peiping regime, which had previously tolerated the exist-
ence of some small businesses run by former Europeans, has now clamped
down on them as part of a campaign to eliminate the last vestiges of pri-
vate enterprise. This has deprived many refugees of their means of
- ? -
rHt EUROPEAN REFUGEES IN.CHIMA
livelihood -- especially since most employment by state-owned industry is
closed to them. Those unable to work are denied ration cards, and in
addition, those who are not now employed are being moved to remote areas
such as Sinkiang.
A letter received by the World Council of Churches from a refugee
still in China reported that "Those still employed (teachers; engineers,
technicians) are hardly tolerated. One has to imagine the consequences
of it all. We are strongly urged to return to our homeland /The USSR
or to stay in China and help build communism."
Another letter said, "I have several times refused to go to the
USSR -- and I am refusing now. There is no other way, no other road for
me but the road to a free world."
A third letter, received recently, said "This is my last letter
to you...we are not free to choose our own destiny."
At a Geneva meeting of the Executive Committee of the High Com-
missioner for Refugees Program, in January 1959, it was announced that,
in addition to funds for the European refugees in China pledged at a Novem-
ber 1958 meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration,
a total of $923,000 had since become available for the transportation of
European Refugees from Hong Kong, once they get out of China. Of this
amount, $675,000 was pledged by the United States delegation, in advance
of matching commitments from other nations. The United Kingdom Committee
for World Refugee Year promised $168,000; the Government of Switzerland,
$15,000 plus 100 air passages from Hong Kong to any destination in the
world; Italy $15,000; and Denmark $14,500.
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THE EUROPEAN REFUGEES IN CHINA
These funds, however, are only sufficient to move 3,200 refugees
from Hong Kong. The High Commissioner for Refugees, Dr. Auguste R. Lindt,
has reported that $4,620000 would be necessary to evacuate the remaining
European refugees from Communist China. The High Commissioner's Office
has also reported that in most instances it is "now, or not at all," for
those who remain in Communist China. Dr. Edgar H.S. Chandler) Director
of Refugee Servicelbr the World Council of Churches) observed that action
soon "may make the difference between life or death for some thousands of
people who have already suffered cruelly because of their love of freedom."
These people have succeeded in fleeing communism for the second time. Shown here
boarding a plane in Hong Kong for eventual resettlement elsewhere in the free world,
they are some of the thousands of White Russians who went to China after the
Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917.
After the Communist take-over of China, they refused to return to the USSR, and
recent developments within China, both political and economic, have made their
position there more precarious than ever.
There are still 10,000 of these European refugees in mainland China who have
informed the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that they wish to settle
somewhere in the free world. Several hundred are past the age of 65, and many more
chronically ill or destitute.
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"-.
Refugees fleeing from North to
South Korea between 1945 and
1951 braved almost insurmount-
able obstacles to get away from
Communist "liberation" in the
North. During that time, more
than two and a half million
persons fled to the Republic
of (South) Korea.
Here refugees crawl perilously
over the shattered girders of
the bridge at Pyongyang, North
Korea, as they flee south across
the river in December of 1950
to escape the onrushing Chinese
Communists.
THE REFUGEE FLIGHT FROM COMMUNIST NORTH KaREA
These Korean refugees are some of the more than a
Invasion of Seoul, rather than repeat the experiences
occupation of the capital and other cities.
million persons who fled the second
they endured in the original Communist
By Merle Parker
?.?
No one who was in Korea between 1945 and 1951 will ever forget the
seemingly endless lines of refugees -- men, women and children moving slowly
southward in a kind of silent repudiation of the Communist regime in the north.
In the five years of this voluntary exodus, more than two and a half
million persons managed to reach the Republic of (South) Korea. A million
others died of exposure, starvation or disease, most of these perishing from
the nightmarish conditions .they encountered in their escape from the Communist
terror.
Refugees braved almost insurmountable obstacles. In addition to the
hazards of weather and terrain, they faced Communist border guards acting under
orders to shoot to kill. Many embarked on the long journey with insufficient
food and clothing. Illnesses soon developed. But their courage seldom faltered.
The historic southward migration, which began as a trickle shortly
after Korea was divided at the 38th parallel in mid-1945, had become a flood
by 1946. Four years later an estimated 1,800,000 Koreans already had arrived
at their destinations below the Communist border. Others were enroute and,
far to the north, thousands more were preparing to follow.
Throughout this time of unrest, the political division of Korea
continued. The Soviet Union, although it had agreed at a 1945 foreign ministers'
conference to a joint trusteeship for Korea, resisted all efforts in this
, 29
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THE REFUGM FLIGHT FROM COMMUNIST NORTH KOREA.
direction. In 1948, the Soviets established their own puppet government in
North Korea. Korea's southern half became the Republic of Korea the same
year and was recognized by the United Nations as the country's only lawful
government.
141,n Communist forces from North Korea invaded the Republic of
Korea on June 25, 1950, a second refugee wave was set in motion, but the
invasion was so rapid that only a few hundred thousand had time to flee before
it. Fleeing Koreans crowded the roads in a desperate attempt to reach safety
and escape the advancing Communist military forces. Thousands died on the
highways. Families were separated and pathetic bands of lost children were
a common sight.
A third tide of refugees moved southward when the armies of Communist
China attacked the United Nations forces defending the Republic of Korea a
few months later.
In the middle of one of the coldest winters in Korean history, the
refugee throngs encountered hardship after hardship. Snow and freezing tem-
peratures added to their miseries.
The Taedung River near Pyongyang, in Communist North Korea, presented
a typical picture. Some fortunate refugees were able to get across on flatboats
or barges. Others were forced to wade through ice-clogged water in traversing
the missing spans of a wrecked bridge.
When the Communists entered Seoul for the second time, in January
of 1951, that city of around 1.5 million had almost emptied itself. Only
100,000 had escaped before the first Communist occupation, but more than a
3?)
?
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THE REFUGPR FLIGHT FROM COMMUNIST NORTH KOREA'
million fled from the second invasion, rather than repeat the experiences they
had endured in the original Communist occupation of Seoul and other cities. By
boxcar, truck and cart, by bicycle and on foot, the refugees fled south. Th&
snow-dusted roads were streaks of movement; the clean lines of railroad tracks,
as seen from the air, were obscured by the thousands moving along them. Every
stream had a border of people trying to drink or wash.
One of those who saw the refugee exodus at first hand, wrote in January
1952: "By every possible kind of conveyance and on foot or even crawling on
their hands or knees, they took to the roads, and when these were filled swarmed
across mountains. They crossed streams whose bridges had been blown up, pulling
themselves by freezing hands on girders sticking out of the water. They clung
to the tops or sides of trains -- and many froze and fell under the wheels.
Many suffocated in freight cars packed with humanity.
"Innumerable children, women and men died. Tens of thousands of
families were separated. Mothers died in the snow beside the road, their babies
crying on their backs. The personal tragedies were many. There are stories of
the ten-year-old orphan girl who found a child crying in the streets, and
carried the two-year-old on her back for weeks on the refugee road to the south
until they both found a haven."
Many refugees were created by Communist guerrilla activity-. Bands
hid in the mountains, descended on the villages at night to loot and burn.
They carried off food and clothing, even stripping the people who fell into
their hands.
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THE REFUGEE FLIGHT FROM COMMUNIST NORTH KOREA
So many-refugees headed for the Pusan area that it was necessary to
set up road blocks to shunt part of the flood to southwest Korea. Many
refugees were taken to Koje Island. When UN troops were forced out of the
northeast at Hungnam, ships carried over 100,000 civilians to Pusan. Most
of these later reached Koje. Another naval and air evacuation from the Seoul
area carried tens of thousands to the large southwestern island of Chejudo.
Thera were many incredible rescue accounts. On December 22, 1950,
the freighter MEREDITH VICTORY crept up to the dying city of Hungnam to pick
up some battle-tired UN officers. Most ships and all but a few rear-guard
troops had left the city; only continuous bombardment of the hills kept the
Communists from descending. The enemy had vowed in broadcasts to'behead all
Koreans "corrupted" by United Nations influence, but for two days thousands
of Korean civilians had been sitting helplessly at the waterfront.
The freighter had space for only 12 passengers and a 46-man crew,
little food, water, or sanitary facilities. But it could not leave the
refugees behind: by the time it left Hungnam the next morning, all holds were
full and the decks were brimming. In the four days it took the MEREDITH VICTORY
to reach Koje Island, the refugees had only one meal of cooked rice, picked
up at Pusan, and five children had been born in the crowded holds, but the
unbelievable number of 15,000 persons had been carried to freedom in one
shipload.
In South Korea, an estimated four persons out of ten were, at one
time or another, refugees. During the summer of 1950, the Communists, destroyed
32
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c
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THE REFUGEE FLIGHT FROM COMMUNIST NORTH KOREA
many farms and building. An estimated 600,000 homes were burned or otherwise
ruined in the first year and a half of Korean fighting. Many refugees lived
in "homes" which consisted of a hole dug into the side of a hill, roofed over
by poles, straw and dirt.
A higher proportion of educated than of uneducated people fled from
the Communist terror because they had been marked for liquidation for defying
the totalitarian regime.
An armistice agreement was signed on July 27, 1953, after three years
of war. In addition to the two and a half million refugees who had fled to the
free south, 22,500 North Korean and Chinese prisoners of war refused repatriation
to the north. An additional 62,000 North Korean soldiers who had not been
prisoners also chose to stay in the free Republic of Korea.
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I CHOSE FREEDOM IN SOUTH KOREA
By Jai Duk Han
, (Jai Duk Han, who recently fled to South
Korea, is a former editor of the daily newspaper Minloo
Chosuns the Communist regime's organ in Pyongyang North
Korea. The 49-year-old career journalist, who was once
a favorite of Kim Il Sung, the puppet Premier, had been
a member of the Communist Party for more than 12 years.
In July.1953 he VAS sent to japan as a Communist agent,
where he remained until 1959 when he obtained asylum in
the Republic of Korea.)
Before I was sent to Japan as a Communist agent in 1953, I was one
of the editors for the Soviet and Chinese Communist-controlled regime of North
Korea. However, I was never able to express myself freely. Under the Communists,
a newspaperman has no freedom of speech. He merely speaks and mrites what the
rulers of the country dictate.
I was under control of the propaganda chief of the North Korean
Communist Party. Though newspapers were censured by the Soviet Army head,-
quarters, the Communist Party, and the propaganda ministry, I nevertheless
lived in constant fear of a mistaken word or phrase for which I might be
charged. As a matter of fact, my life as an editor ended when I placed
Stalin's photograph on the second page instead of the front page of our paper.
In a series of purges, I was reduced from my position as editor to a lowly
reporter on a Communist magazine.
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, I CHOSE FREEDOM IN SOUTH KOREA
What is the real situation in North Korea? Contrary to the alleged
Communist ideology of "an equal life for equal labor," there has been formed
in North Korea -- as in all Communist-ruled countries -- a new privileged
class of a few Communist officials who enjoy extreme luxuries at the coat of
the blood and sweat of the people.
There is no human dignity, decency, freedom, or any basic rights for
the people. Freedom exists only for the top leaders of the Communist Party.
For the rank and file under this Communist dictatorship, there is only hardship,
fear and unrest.
In North Korea all elections are unanimous, whether they take plaoe
within the Communist Party, the People's Committee or the so-called Fatherland
Front meetings. When I asked my superiors what would happen if there was a
dissenting vote, they criticized me severely for being cynical. Speakers
discussing Communist Party policy or contention always employ the stereotyped
phrase: "I fully support the report."
Without instruction from the Soviet Communist Party, the North Korean
Labor (Communist) Party cannot act of its awn accord. Party officials justify
this by saying this is symbolic of the international unity of the proletariat.
The food ration classifications are divided into as many as ten
grades, and the rations for the masses are insufficient for proper subsistence.
On the other band, the ration given to the privileged class exceeds their
needs. This extra food for the privileged class is used as a weapon to
maintain loyalty of the top echelons of the Party.
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?%
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? eAk
?1111.11"
I CHOSE FREEDOM IN SOUTH KOREA
About the time the Korean conflict ended (July 1953) I was smuggled
into Japan, against my objections, as an agent for the Communists. My under-
cover mission was to promote North Korean-Japan goodwill.
In Japan, it was possible for me to observe world trends as well as
to compare North and South Korea from a new perspective. Gradually I developed
doubts about communism, which finally led to complete rejection of it. It
was at this stage that some leaders among Korean residents in Japan suggested
I visit South Korea. The trip has disproved many false claims by the Communists
about the lack of happiness and freedom in the South.
A brief tour along the streets of Seoul has shown me that every
shop and store here is full of domestic products. Citizens enjoy a prosperous
life.
I have had an opportunity to acquaint myself with the real situation
in South Korea. I have visited factories, cultural and educational facilities,
and social work installations. Many thousands of textile machines were at
work, and many good home products abound in the markets. The bookstores are
filled with new publications.
The schools of each level are fully occupied by students, and great
crowds throng the theatres to see locally-node pictures. I see friendly persons
happily listening to music, and in the streets I see people with bright faces
and clean clothes. All this convinces me that I made the right decision when
I came to South Korea.
Now that I have known freedom, I can fully testify before the
conscience of all mankind that communism is a dreadful cult of fallacy, deception
36
r
I CHOSE FREEDOM IN SOUTH KOREA
and slavery, ruled by terror. Under the Communist monolithic rule, a man no
longer lives but merely exists -- a machine completely at the mercy of the dic-
tators.
37
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Happily clutching packages of rice
and fish, refugees from Communist
rule in North Vietnam leave a trans-
port for their new homes in the free
south.
Within eight months of the mid-1954
partition of Vietnam, nearly one
million Vietnamese had fled from the
Communist-controlled north to live
and work in the free south.
The French and American ships of the
"Passage to Freedom" operation which
carried the refugees south had to
wait three miles offshore for the
escapees' frail boats and water-
logged rafts to meet them.
One of the most extraordinary
mass movements of modern
times took place in the last
half of 1954, when almost a
million Vietnamese fled from
Communist-controlled North
Vietnam to the free south.
Refugees who managed to
reach the sea, where French
and American ships were
waiting beyond the Vietminh
territorial waters, risked
further danger from Communist
gunfire and also from the
waves and winds that engulfed
their frail boats. Here
citizens of Hai Lang Dis-
trict, Ouang Tri Province, in
central Vietnam, welcome
thirty refugees from North
Vietnam as their boat is
about to dock for the first
time on free soil.
OPERATION EXODUS: THE FLIGHT OF A MILLION VIETNAMESE FROM COMMUNISM
By Merle Parker
One of the most extraordinary mass movements of modern times took
place in the last half of 1954, when almost a million Vietnamese fled from the
Communist?controlled northern part of their homeland to the free south.
It was a movement of a kind that had already taken place in the
Soviet Union, in satellite East Europe, in China and in Korea.
The Vietnamese exodus began on July 21, 1954, when seven years of
civil war in Indochina came to an end. An armistice, signed at Geneva by the
French government and the Communist?controlled Viet Minh Army, had partitioned
Vietnam. The Communists got all Vietnamese territory north of the 17th
parallel ? more than half of the country and the population.
One of the most important provisions of the armistice agreement said
that "From the date of entry into force of the present Agreement until the
movement of troops is completed, any civilians residing in a district controlled
by one party who wish to go and live in the zone assigned to the other party
shall be permitted and helped to do so by the authorities in that district."
When this article (14?D) of the Geneva Armistice Agreement went into
effect, the new government of President Ngo Dinh Diem in the free South was
only two weeks old, but tens of thousands of refugees were already converging
on the northern capital of Hanoi for evacuation south. The mass exodus had
begun.
39
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OPERATION EXODUS: THE FLIGHT OF A MILLION VIETNAMESE FROM COMMUNISM
There were students, teachers, civil servants and other professional
people. There were also farmers, fishermen, skilled and unskilled workers.
All had tasted seven years of communism under the Viet Minh and wanted no more.
Some of them were Buddhists, some were Christians. Finally, there were ethnic
minority groups like the 40,000 Nung tribesmen from Mon-Cai, and the 2,000
Thais and Meos -- nomadic mountaineers.
Bui-Chu and Phat-Diem, predominantly Catholic provinces 80 kilometers
southeast of Hanoi, had been engulfed by the Viet Minh while the cease-fire
was being negotiated. The Communist occupation brought to the people brutal
corroboration of what their priests had warned: communism would never tolerate
the practice of their or any other religion. The people from these two
provinces were the first Vietnamese refugees.
By working day and night the Diem government quickly completed
evacuation plans for the refugees. Evacuees from the provinces in the north
were to be assembled in temporary camps around Hanoi or sent on to Haidung and
Haiphong; at these staging centers they would be registered and processed for
air or sea transport.
With French and American aid, air and sea transport was organized
between the northern staging centers and reception centers in the South. There
the refugees would be given food, clothing, money, sleeping mats, blankets,
rice bowls, cooking utensils, firewood, necessary medicines and vaccines, DDT
powder and condensed milk for babies.
So quickly did the flood of refugees rise, however, that the govern-
ment of South Vietnam was nearly swamped: in the pe21c month of September 1954,
more than 200,000 refugees arrived in the south.
140
OPERATION EXODUS: THE FLIGHT OF A MILLION VIETNAMESE MICH COMMUNISM
At the same time the Diem Government helped 140,000 Communists --
mostly soldiers and their families -- reach the North.
It soon became evident that the Communist Viet Minh, dishonoring
their own signatures, were doing everything possible to stop the refugees who
wanted to go South. The International Control Commission, which arrived in
Vietnam in August 1954, found the Viet Minh flagrantly violating the Armistice
Agreement by holding back all prisoners of war, military and civilian. The
prisoners were to have been released within 30 days of the cease-fire. Other
Vietnamese also were prevented from leaving the North.
Those who did manage to escape told haw the Communists were attempting
to hold people back by refusing to allow them to sell their land or houses, or
by physically barring their way, even to the extent of dragging refugees off
the roads. No one with children was allowed to use any kind of outward bound
transportation. Husbands were separated from wives; children from mothers;
individual hostages were held on fabricated pretexts.
It is impossible to go any distance in the North Vietnam. delta
without having to cross rivers and streams, so the Communists destroyed the
bridges, and forbade:. ferryboats to carry the refugees.
No one suspected of being a refugee was allowed to board passenger
barges leaving for Hanoi. If a father or mother did slip aboard with children,
Viet Minh officials took the children off by.force. Intimidation, physical
violence, barricades, gunfire -- dozens of documented eyewitness accounts by
those who did reach the south told the story of such Communist attempts to
prevent the migration.
41
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1
OPERATION EXODUS: THE FLIGHT OF A KUHN VIETNAMESE FROM COMMUNISM
One report, a matter of public record with the International Control
Commission, related that on January 12, 1955, Viet Minh troops attacked the
villagers of Luu NV, a town 80 kilometers northwest of Vinh. There a large
group of Catholic refugees had gathered to make their way to freedom. To
break up the group, the Viet Minh Communists resorted to machin6 guns and
rifles. Sixteen innocent people were killed.
When the Viet Minh did allow people to gather in staging areas for
eventual departure south, living conditions were made as miserable as possible.
In Phat Diem 30 to 40 refugees were squeezed into a small room, and more than
a hundred lived in a cellar. Concentrated for months in this same place, the
refugees gradually spent what little money they had been permitted to take with
them, and were finally compelled to sell their clothes or a last priceless
possession -- a cradle, a set of teacups, a painting -- to buy food. Hungry
mothers, physically unable to nurse their babies, were forced to feed them
rice soup.
Under such conditions many persons died from cholera, dysentery and
other diseases. No medical services or drugs were provided by the Communists.
Refugees who managed to reach the sea, where French and American ships
were waiting beyond the Viet Minh territorial waters -- the Communists had
refused them permission to approach the shore -- risked further danger. Tnis
came not only fraa the waves, winds and tides that sometimes engulfed their
frail boats and water?logged rafts and swept them overboard, but from the
Communists who shot and wounded many before they could reach the rescue ships.
French planes also carried 3,000 refugees a day. Between August 9 and -
112
.4\
OWNI
?
'6
srez."111
=E,
OPERATION EXODUS: ME FLIGHT OF A MILLION VIETNAMESE FROM COMMUNISM
September 16 of 1954, these planes made 2,088 round trips between Hanoi and
Saigon.
When the last communist soldiers had reached the North, the Viet
Minh regime refused to allow anymore refugees to leave the North. Not a
single refugee has since been able to come south officially.
Despite the Communists' obstructive tactics, the great exodus from
the north had swelled to a total of nearly one million refugees and other
displaced persons before the Viet Minh stopped it altogether.
Why did so many leave their ancestral homes and possessions? They
sought freedom and the right to practice their own. religion. Mr. Due Quang,
a refugee Buddhist priest now in South Nrietnam, said Communist officials
intentionally schedule political meetings at the same time Buddhist rites are
being conducted and that along with the rest of the population, Buddhist
followers are forced to attend the Comunist rallies. He noted that three
Buddhist monks from the pagoda of Dan Vien in Thanh Hoa Province were executed
on false treason charges.
Other refugees told of the sentencing of Father Pham Van Tan, pastor
of the Catholic Mission in the North Vietnam city of Phat Diem, to five years
in prison on false charges of forging circulation cards which allowed people
to move freely and accomplish "misdeeds" -- that is, go to the south.
Tran Soc, once a resident of Phuoc in Nam Dinh Province, told refugee
officials he escaped to the South after the Viet Minh threatened him with
imprisonment if his son, a member of the Vietnamese National Army, did not
return to the North. Trinh Huynh Thai, a Chinese merchant from Hanoi, said
143
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OPERATION EXODUS: THE FLIGHT OF A MILLION VIETNAMESE FROM COMMUNISM
"I decided to leave because I could not live under a regime fpunded on
suspicion and oppression. It was incompatible to my conception of the dignity
of a human being."
A doctor said be escaped to the South when he got in trouble with
the Viet Minh for failing to attend a political meeting. He had been with
a critically ill patient at the time. He was told that his duty to the state
was of first importance, and his patients should receive secondary consideration.
Than Van Thi, a refugee teacher, said one of the first goals of the
Communist regime was to divide the family. Wives were told to spy on husbands,
and school children on their parents. Young women were forbidden to marry
landowners or lintellectualsl."
Nguyen-Due Khoi, a resident of Tan An Nghe Province, wrote to the
International Control Commission:
"My family consists of five people. According to the Geneva Agreement,
we had the right to mime to the South. However, when we left our village, the
Communists used every means to prevent our going. They arrested gr younger
brother and myself and made us stand in the cold water of a river for an hour.
They took our money, clothing, and tied our hands behind our backs before
throwing us in prison. We were naked, and our legs were tied to a heavy
wooden stanchion day and night. We were beaten from time to time, and one of
my arms was broken."
Early in 1955 the Viet Minh requested the International Control
Commission to investigate the refugee situation in the South, claiming that
thousands who wanted to return to the North were being prevented from doing so.
)414
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'7,71
-rd
0,71,73=733
A:a
,~77;
r.
? 11.7177
OPERATION EXODUS: THE FLIGHT OF A MILLION VIETNAMESE FROM COMMUNISM
The Commission, accompanied by Viet Minh delegates, made a complete ir.esti-
gation, and found only one person out of the 800,000 who had fled by then who
wanted to return to the Communist-ruled North.
Few Vietnamese have managed to escape since the Viet Minh lowered
the "Bamboo Curtain." Since May 1955 the number of refugees coming from the
north has been relatively insignificant, with probably less than 50 per month
escaping.
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111,1111.11,11.1
THE NEWEST ESCAPE FROM COMMUNISM: THE REFUGEES FROM TIBET
By Merle Parker
Communist China's brutal subjugation of
Tibet in March 1959, and the flight of
the Dalai Lama, added drama to the
exodus of some 16,000 Tibetans into
India during 1959.
Strafed And bombed by the Chinese
Communists during their escape, these
refugees walk the last few miles to a
temporary camp in India. The escapees
Included many wounded in the fighting
at Lhasa, the Tibetan capital.
In April and May of 1959 a new group of refugees from communism
were added to the 12,000,000 who have fled the Sino-Soviet orbit since
World War II. During the two months which followed the uprising in Lhasa in
March 195,, more than 13,000 Tibetans undertook the hazardoue. month-long route
to freedom in India and the Himalayan states of Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. An
estimated 8,000 Tibetans had already escaped during the years following the
communist invasion in 1950.
The escape of these thousands -- merchants, herdsmen, laborers, anti-
Communist fighters, monks and lamas -- was as eloquent in its own way as the
spectacular escape at the end of March 1959 of Tibet's religious and temporal
leader, the young Dalai Lama.
On March 17 the Dalai Lama fled Lhasa in secrecy because Tibetans
feared he might be abducted by the Chinese Communists. Accompanied by his
mother, two sisters, a younger brother and a small group of Tibetan rebels, he
passed through heavy Chinese troop concentrations around the capital, and evaded
search planes and tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers sent to intercept his
party. Heading south across the most forbidding mountain country in the world,
for fifteen days the Dalai Lama and his tiny retinue travelled by foot and mule-
back, crossing a windswept plateau, rugged mountains and 16,000-foot passes. He
travelled mostly at night.
Some of the Tibetan refugees who have reached safety in India rest before going on to camps
provided by the Indian government. The first groups which fled included merchants, fighters,
herdsmen, peasants, laborers, and a dozen monks, including a living Buddha from a monastery.
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THt NEWEST ESCAPE FROM COMMUNISM: THE REFUGEES FROM TIBET
On March 31 the Dalai Lama crossed into the northeast Indian province
of Assam. The Indian Government subsequently offered him asylum and be took up
residence in Mussoorie, in the west Himalayan foothills about 135 miles from
New Delhi.
By the end of April, despite strafing and bombing on the caravan
trails and in the mountain passes by Chinese Communist planes, an estimated
7,000 Tibetans had managed to reach India and were making their way to a camp
near Tezpur. By mid-May the number had reached more than 13,000.
The Indian government granted political asylum to all those who fled
and made arrangements to shelter and feed the Tibetans after their long journeys
through mountainous terrain. Medical supplies, food and clothing for the refu-
gees were donated from free countries in Asia and other parts of the world.
In Misamari, 25 miles from Tezpur, where most of the refugees have
been settled, a hospital and other health facilities were readied.
On May 13 the first group of 92 Tibetan escapees, ranging in age
from nine to 70, were welcomed to the refugee camp at Misamari. Many of them
had been walking for almost two months, coming through the Tulung La (pass),
southeast of Tsena Dzong, toward Towang strip -- which has been, described as
one of the most difficult journeys in the world. Most of the refugees were
in rags, and many had bandages covering bullet wounds sustained either during
the fighting in Lhasa, or en route.
One refugee, Pochkar Rinpochi, said he saw Chinese Communist planes
machine-gunning fleeing refugees and dropping bombs on the escape road at
Phanpo south of Lhasa. Other refugees described strafing attacks and bomb-
ings in the Lbikh area.
118
THE NEWEST ESCAPE FROM COMMUNISM: THE REFUGEES FROM TIBET
The first refugees said that additional thousands were fleeing be-
hind them because of Chinese Communist persecution and the indoctrination pre-
gram, which had been stepped up following the Dalai Lama's escape to India.
One of the first arrivals, a lama from a monastery in Lhasa, said
be fled on March 21, four days after the Dalai Lama's departure. He reported:
"The Chinese were bombing Lhasa. My parents advised me to flee because I
mould not be safe in Lhasa. After we had crossed the Tsangpo River, we heard
that the Chinese were bombing and machine-gunning the capital."
The second group of arrivals, reaching India on May 15, was headed
by Tutin Chotuk, Civil Governor of Lhoka, southeast of Lhasa, one of Tibet's
most heavily populated provinces. Chotuk said: "We did not have the arms to
fight the Chines. -- we are a religious country and we did not want to fight
any more." He added that there was no hope of wives and families following them,
and said "We hope to get back to Tibet some day, but we do not know whether it
will be possible."
Tutin Thuchin, the 70-year-old Abbott (head lama) of the Potala
palace in Lhasa, arrived in mid-May after a trip on horseback lasting almost
two months. He said "countless people" had been killed, and added: "They
were doing it through wantonness. We were forced out as a result of the fight-
ing. There was bombing and rifle fire which we could not stand. I escaped
from the Potala while it was being bombarded. It was a dark night and I WRS
unable to sea the full amount of damage."
A. monk frau Drepung, Tibet's largest Bnddhist monastery, located near
Lhasa, said only 3,000 of the monastery's 8,000 monks were still in the build-
ing when he escaped on April 8. The monastery has been converted into a school
where Tibetan children are receiving Communist indoctrination, he added.
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THE NEWEST ESCAPE FROM COMMUNISM, THE REFUGEES
TIBET
The Sakhya Lama, third-ranking ecclerlastical figure in the Tibetan .
hierarchy, arrived in Sikkim on May 20 with his/mother, sister, and 12 high
lamas. Shigatse, site of the Sakhya Lames monastery, is 150 miles directly
north of Gangtok and about 35 miles north of the border between Tibet and
Sikkimgan.Indian protectorate between Bhutan and Nepal. The 15-year-old lama
and his party, trekking almost without halt, took seven days and six nights
to %leach SiRkinto They took a zigzag route to avoid Chinese troops patrolling
the border.
Another group of 600 refugees from Tibet, which'arrived in West Bengal
through Bhutan over the week-end of May 16-17, included the governor of Naiad-
zong Province, his wife and son. On May 21, another high-ranking lama, Way&
Karmapa, head of the Karma Khagyut, one of the leading groups of the "Red Hat"
sect of Tibetan Buddhism, arrived safely in India. One group of Tibetan re-
fugees included fifteen Chinese soldiers who had joined the rebels during
their fight in Lhasa.
A-spokesman for another group of refugees said late in May, "We do
not want the imposition of communism on Tibetans nor do we like Chinese in-
tervention in our religious affairs." He attributed the mass migration of
Tibetans to 'Dna to the "destruction of monasteries and killing of monks and
lamas by Chinese troops." He added that a large number of Tibetans had been
killed, wounded or captured while attempting to cross the border.
Thousands of Tibetans who wanted to join in the march to India were
unable to do so. An estimated 65,000 were killed in the fighting or while
attempting to escape. Lhasa was turned into a city of women and children as
thousands of men were loaded into trucks and taken to forced labor camps.
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THE NEWEST ESCAPE FROM COMT4UNISM: THE REFUGEES FRCH TIBET
The Fatale. at Lhasa *was extensively damaged by Chinese artillery
and the Communists poured hundreds of artillery shells into the Norbulingka
palace as well. Other buildings in the capital were heavily damaged: Chakport
Medical College and the Ramoche Monastery, the chief training center of Tibetan
Buddhism, were both destroyed, jokang, the principal temple in Lhasa, was
desecrated. The three most important monasteries oflibet Drepung, Sera,
and Andung were subjected to shelling and devastation, one refugee said,
and the Chinese Communists also burned down Kundeling and Chomoling monasteries.
A June 5 report made at the request of the International Commission
of Jurists at Geneva, by Purshottam Trikamdas, general secretary of the
Indian Commission of Jurists, said there is a "prima facie case that on the
part of the Chinese there has been an attempt to destroy tht. nationalethical,
racial and religious group of Tibetans by killing members of the group and by
causing serious bodily and mental harm. These acts constitute the crime of
genocide (the mass destruction of peoples7 under the genocide convention of
the United Nations of 1948".
Today refugees continue to flee Tibet in a steady trickle past the
close Chinese Communist frontier surveillance. Officials working with the
refugees in India believe the number of those escaping in the new influx since
April 1959 may eventually reach 20,000.
? V41
53.
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THE TIBETAN REFUGEES SPEAK
(From a Report by The International Commission of Jurists)
- (On July 24, 1959, the International
Commission of Jurists released a report on Tibet under
the Chinese Communists, titled "The Question of Tibet
and the Rule of Law." The Commission, a non-government-
al organization which has Consultative Status with the
. United Nations Economic and Social Council, seeks to
foster understanding of and respect for the Rule of
Law. Its headquarters are in Geneva.
The following statements by Tibetan refugees who have
.fled their Communist-contro/led homeland and are now
in India are quoted from Document 21 of the ICJ report,)
Statement by Chaehoe Nameyal Dorie (a former Governor of a Province under the
Chinese).
"From 1955
.you will cause me to
"The story
till now the story of the fighting if it is to be told to.
shed tears of blood.
is not of a class or party -- not of the upper strata, not
'the ordinary man, these are not the only ones who suffer. Perhaps our country
does not mean anything to most people. We have not much. Ours is a barren land.
We make no show, no cars, no hotels. We are insignificant -- no aeroplanes to fight.
But human beings are massacred in my country...
"I come from Do-Kham and belong to Derge District, which has about
50,000 people. There are 500 bigger monasteries alone in this area. In 1950
the Chinese came over to my area and declared they have come to bring in reforms
and to secure .justice for the benefit of the people -- protecting their allegiance
52
?
THE TIBETAN REFUGEES SPEAK
to the principles of equality, fraternity and brotherhood. They said that not
even a needle or thread will be taken from the Tibetan people unjustifiably.
Thousands of books and pamphlets were distributed for propaganda on these lines
and giving assurance that no single Tibetan even will be molested. From 1950-
1953 the Chinese followed a soft policy with this propaganda. In 1953-56
Chinese started oppression and a more rigid control over the Tibetans was turned
on.
"In 1956 the Chinese announced their policy of the so-called 'Road to
Socialism'. The Chinese first turned their offensive against the monasteries.
In 1956 a gruesome incident happened in the famous monastery Peyu Compa which
had 1,500 monks. The head of the monastery, a reincarnate Lama called Dalia-
Dezer, 44 years old, was made nude, bound with ropes and dragged along the
ground from the hill-top where
was mangled and his intestines
respected that the earth under
the monastery was situated. As a result his body
came out. This Lama was very popular and so
his feet was taken and kept as holy sacrament.
"In Parpong Monastery comprising 1,700 monks, the Head Abbot (reincarnate)
called Wangyal Rimpoche, aged 39 years, was kept handcuffed with 'Russian Steel'
for twenty-eight days, with the result that his wrists got fleeced of flesh to
the bones. Today he is in Bhutan -- his hands beat the marks...The monasteries
had granaries with stocks of grain to last for years. The Chinese emptied these
granaries and so compelled the monks to leave those places.
"I am a witness to all these because I was working with the Chinese
as a Tushi(governor)...My experience of four years' work with the Chinese convinced
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THE TIBETAN REFUGEES SPEAK
me that their propaganda was false and that their real intention was to
exterminate us as a race and destroy our religion and culture. In 1958 the
daily ration for a man in those areas was only two chatangs of grain or rice.
We had to pay many taxes, a tax even for the possession of furniture. If we
had an extra shirt, a tax had to be paid for it twice a year. If we had no
means to pay the taxes, we had to hand over our clothes and even the drink-
ing glasses we had.
"Even then all my people meeting in assembly begged the Chinese to
take away all they had but to leave them their religion and their way of life.
The Chinese replied that they were mistaken in believing' in their Gods. The
Chinese officer of Dorge said that Tibetan Gods are as like rats and dogs and
wolves. Communists are enemies not only to Buddhism but to all religion. It
has been told to me that more than 2,000 Lamas had been killed by the Chinese.
I have personal knowledge of such attacks on 17 Lamas.
"Even if no help, is coming we shall fight to death. We fight not
because we hope to win but that we cannot live under communism. We prefer
death. We are fighting not for a class or sect. We are fighting for our
religion, our country, our race. If these cannot be preserved we will die a
thousand deaths rather than surrender these to the Chinese."
Statement of Andu Loto Phontso
"I, Phontso, was in Litang (Kham) when the Communists came in 1950.
In the beginning their manner of dealing with us was persuasive. This went
on-till 1955. When the Chinese found that we would not accept their ways by
54
? THE TIBETAN REFUGEES SPEAK
giving up our religion and our ancient culture they became agressive. Then
the Chinese told us that there were only two ways and we were asked to choose
one. 'There is the white way which is the road to communism and there is the
black way which would lead to the destruction of everything you possess -- life,
property, religion, social institutions. Choogefahatiyou want'. If my people
take the so-called white way our religion is gone, our tradition is gone, our
race is gone. So many people with full consciousness accepted the so-called
black way. 'Even if our lives are destroyed we won't accept the white way', we
replied. After the reply an unprecedented calamity descended on us 4 It was
as if we were being attacked by worms from above and ants from below."
Phontso ended his long narrative by saying: "Indulzing in wanton and
cruel shooting, the Chinese destroyed many lives. Litang was reduced to half by
massacre. Of the remaining, one-half are living a perilous life staying in the
jungle but resisting the Chinese authorities. With no shelter and with few
clothes they are living in famine conditions, subsisting on roots, etc. They
can have no contact with their people, the women and children, who, even without
provocation, are harassed. There are cases of women, whose husbands are away in
the jungles, who have jumped into torrents with their children because they found
life unbearable. In Litang we are a deeply religious people. But the Giants.
go on accusing us of violent acts to have a pretext to terrorise the people. The
atrocities of the Chinese have made us desperate.
"I, Loto Phontso, resisted the Chinese for two years. In 1957 I gave
up whatever I had and escaped to India. My brother is continuing his fight --
narrowly escaping many times from the Chinese.
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' THE TIBETAN REFUGEES SPEAK
-
"In Litang after the struggle started, only women and children of
thirteen years and below were left. Chinese troops come to the houses to
search for the men. The house dogs start barking and the children rush out.
The Chinese shoot down the dogs and in the process some of the children also
get killed. In the beginning of the uprising the women used to go and keep
food in certain places. The Chinese come to know of it and shoot the women
when they come to deposit the food in the agreed marked places. Later they
destroyed the crops to prevent help from getting across to the partisans"...
Statement of two monks Thotub and Chamba of Tao From Kham
Both of them stated that lands taken from monasteries and landlords
were first distributed to Tibetans. In a year they were all deprived of the
land, and Chinese were settled on the land.
Thotub added: "I have a recollection of an incident connected with
the Red Army's march to Yenan. I was 17 years old then. Chu Teh came to our
country via Gyal Rong. They were having a big congregation of monks in the
monastery of Tao Ngyam-tso Compo. The monastery alone houses 1900 monks. The
fleeing Communists under Chu Teh attacke4 the monastery, killing 30 monks. The
monastery was destroyed and they ran off taking the wealth and the animals. On
the march they robbed us of our grains and other possessions. Because of this
raid the country was faminestrikan, and thousands died for want of food,
"To rectify these wrongs in 1950 when they invaded our country they
loudly professed good intentions and talked of equality and justice. This went
on for three years, after which the Chinese started changing their ways. In 1956
they started terrorising us. They greatly harassed the monks...
56
ATE TIBETAN REFUGEES SPEAK ?
Statement of Thenio of Theev Gompa
"I am not a big person. I am a servant of a trader. Prior to the coming
of the Chinese I was at Tachien Lu (Eastern Tibet)...
"After the coming of the Chinese I stayed with my colleagues for over
a year. In the beginning they used to talk of justice and of bringing in reforms.
They talked that they would not interfere with our lives. There will be no
restrictions on trade. We will enjoy all our personal liberties.
"In that first year they treated us well by offering good prices for
the goods we had to sell. So we brought in large consignments of serge, cotton,
cloth and utensils.
"As soon as goods in plenty got stocked the Chinese employed other
tactics. Instead of paying the due price they paid less; in most cases only half
of the value in goods. We began to suffer heavy losses. When the Chinese raised
the prices in the beginning, the transport charges also got higher. This process
went on to such an extent that the prices offered by the Chinese did not cover
even the cost price of the articles. People got exasperated. They did not want
to sell. I am an eye-witness of many cases of cigarettes bought by petty traders
being thrown into the water rather than be sold at a price which did not even
cover transport.
"In this area there are lots of lamasseries and monasteries. Most of
these religious institutions possess land and have also trade interests. The
Chinese after destroying the trade of the country resorted to trouble the
monasteries. They told everyone that keeping up monks, abbots and even incarnate
lamas is all useless and only a waste of money. They asked the monks to came to
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TRE TIBETAN REFUGEES SPEAK
?
the fields and work for their living. They said that monki were only para-
sites. All our people were shocked. According to our religion monks cannot
engage in wordly affairs.
"The Communists used force to make the monks come out and labor on the
land. People wept when they saw the monks being treated like this. The Communists
got jealous of the influence of the monks and started killing them. Amongst those
killed was the much respected Lochy Gompo Turing who was killed in a mysterious
way in prison. Under the pretext of re-building and repairing monasteries they
have taxed many of the monasteries...As a result, monasteries got deserted. The
inmates could not stay because they had nothing to eat. Under these circumstances
people became convinced that the Chinese were out to destroy their religion.
Getting desperate the people began fighting the Communists."
58
1
SOVIET OFFICIAL TELLS WHY HE SOUGHT POLITICAL ASYLUM
(Excerpts from a statement by Alexander Urevitch Kaznacheev)
401.1,4.A, (On June 24$ 1959, Mt. Raznacheev, 27,
who had been information officer of the Soviet Embassy
in Rangoon, Burma, asked the American Embassy there for.
political asylum. He explains his action in this per-
sonal statement.) ?
My name is Alexander Raxnacheev, but my Burmese friends usually call
me Alex or Mr. Alex. I was born in Moscow April 25, 1932. my family, according
to Russian standards, -is well-to-do. My father is an engineer and a highly-
educated an. My mother. also received a good education. After high school I
entered the Moscow Oriental Institute's Chinese Department. In 1954 I was
transferred to Moscow's International Relations Institute, attached to the
Foreign Office.
In the different departments of that institute I studied English,
Chinese, and some Burmese. I finished that Institute in 1956. In March 1957,
I went to Burma, to continue my studies of Burma and the Burmese language. I
returned to Moscow in September 1957.
Then it was proposed that I join the Foreign Service, and I agreed.
In December 1957 I returned to Burma, where I was appointed to the post of
infotmation officer at the Soviet Embassy. In February 1959 I was promoted to
the post of secretary, and then in May I was told by officials of the Soviet
Embassy that I was going to be promoted to the rank of attache. All pre-
parations were made to send me back to Moscow on leave in June 1959 in order to
get an official appointment to that post. My ticket home was dated June 26.
.s;hts
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1
SOVIET OFFICIAL TELLS"WHY.HE SOUGHTTOLITICAL ASYLUM
IAPOWSoviet Embassy in Rangoon my main task was translation and
interpretation.
in high school I began to feel disbeiierand distrust with the
Soviet regime, the Communist Party and the leaders of the Party.
period of the bloody Stalin regime.
I should tell something about students in the Soviet Union.
USSR, students represent the most progressive part of the population.
Soviet Government and the Communist Party spare no efforts to see that
That was the
In the
The
they
get a good education. Their aim is to convert them into trusted Communists,
trusted followers, and trusted servants of the regime.
But this policy turns. out to be a boomerang. Students think, and
good education can penetrate through propaganda and slander to real facts and
? 4-,
real life._ Students can analyze figures, and often they can see more than
sVviain people workers and peasants.
,./ Quite naturally the. first and the strongest dissatisfaction with
the government and the regimeltakes place among students. I can give a very
strong example of this discontent on the part of students. During the
Hungarian freedom revolution 5i October 195d7 there WAS something like a
shock throughout Soviet society. All people -- and especially students
took hope that the events An Hungary might lessen the grip of terror for them.
There were many disturbances among students during the Hungarian
Vvolution. In Moscow University and the Government High Technical School
-(said to be a stronghold of communism), there were strikes and meetings of
students.
60
at-
'sent.
SOVIET OFFICIAL TILLS WHY HE SOUGHT POLITICAL ASYLUM
The students adopted resolutions and composed demands to the govern-
In most countries meetings of students -- with demands to governments
end authorities -- is a very normal thing, but in the Soviet Union it was un-
precedented. Government and intelligence organs also found out at that time
that some groups of students were forming underground groups.
The institute of International Relations, in which I studied, is also
supposed to be a stronghold of Communism. More than half of the students of
this institute are enlisted from officers of the intelligence service; another
half is made up of youth -- children if high-ranking Soviet officials, such as
?????
the son of Gromyko and the daughter of Molotov Lyho was than still in Party
Sven at this Institute during the Hungarian events the atmosphere
was very tense. All th, students felt uneasy. Studies were interrupted while
students gathered in groups and discussed what was happening. Even the
children of high officials and the former intelligence service officers showed
a little more than just interest in these affairs.,..
During my student days I studied hard. I tried to penetrate through
the slander and distorted facts which were given us by our lecturers,
tried to analyze and compile real facts about the free world, about Russia, about
the life of my own people. At that time I had a hope that some day I would be
able to use all this knowledge for the benefit of my people.
I believe that today in the Soviet Union there are many whore
analyzing and comparing facts about life in free world countries and in their
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SOVIET OFFICIAL TELLS WHY BE SOUGHT POLITICAL ASYLUM
awn country. Many of them are afraid. Many of them are suppressed. Many
of them cannot express --maybe even to themselves -- their real desire for
democracy, for freedom. In my search for truth I found that millions of
people were in concentration camps....
I found misery, poverty and dangerously-low living standards for
millions of Soviet people, on the one side, and dangerous wealth and luxury
for the small elite group of Communist Party leaders on the other side.
I found complete liquidation of any rights, any democratic freedom
for millions on one side, and unlimited power, unlimited rights that can be
compared only with that of the Czar, on the other. In my search I found that
all achievements -- economic, industrial, scientific and educational --
obtained by the Soviet Union were obtained through dangerous sacrifices on the
part of millions. All large and developing industry was practically built on
the bones and blood of millions. It is a very widespread saying in the Soviet
Union that all achievements of the USSR were obtained not because of communism
but in spite of it
The whole social atmosphere in the Soviet Union is tense to the ut-
most extent. There is very widespread fear of other persons, suspicion of
others, disbelief of the aims of others. ;ere is very widespread careerism,
bureaucratism, bribery and spying on others. This atmosphere of disbelief and
hatred and terror, penetrates even to families. It is quite the usual thing
that children are afraid to tell the whole truth to their parents. Husbands
are afraid to share thoughts or criticisms with their wives.
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?11.???????????0????.????????
SOVIET OFFICIAL TELLS WHY HE SOUGHT POLITICAL ASYLUM
For all these reasons my inner hatred of Communist tyranny increased,
although I was quite successful in my attempts to conceal my real beliefs.
When I came to Burma I found a free people -- people who are not
afraid of their government; people who have no mutual suspicion, mutual fear
and mutual spying. I found that my friends in Burma have no desire to see
a Communist government installed in Burma; they do not want to see their
country become a puppet of a larger Communist power.
Because I can speak Burmese it was easier for me to understand this
country; it was easier for me to find how free and kind the Burmese people are.
I made very many friends -- true and sincere friends -- who inspired me to
1?01 4 "ire
in goodness and in humanity.
While working at the Soviet Embassy, however, like all other members
of the staff, I was instructed and ordered to spy on my Burmese friends, to
develop my contacts with the people, to report any conversation and get any
information I could obtain from them. I hated this kind of work; I tried my
best to avoid fulfilling the instruction I got.
A few times I was criticized by my chiefs for supplying too little
information -- too little in view of my knowledge of the Burmese language and
having many Burmese friends to give me "opportunities" in this work.
I am very grateful to my Burmese friends. They helped me to maintain
my self-respect, my pride; they helped me to remember that I am still a man.
Because of them I succeeded in keeping my faith and belief in the goodness of
humanity and civilization.
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SOVIET OFFICIAL TELLS WHY HE SOUGHT POLITICAL ASYLUM
All evils of the Soviet system, the tyranny of the Communist regime,
that are to some extent hidden and not so clearly seen in the USSR, became
clear to me in the tense atmosphere in the Soviet Embassy. Everything I saw
in Burma, particularly my life at the Soviet Embassy, strengthened my hatred
of communism, of the Communist regime, of International communism and its
aims.
All this convinced me that I must not only passively look on from outside at
all this but that I must take an active part in the struggle against this
greatest menace to goodness, humanity and civilization..,.
I have decided on my own free will to leave my former life and
responsibilities. I have left my position in the Soviet Embassy in Rangoon
because I want to struggle against the cruel oppressive 4ranny of communism.
I believe that communism is .evil. because it deprives individual man of his
pride and self-respect. Communism reduces man to a sub-human level where he
a slave of the Party and its ruling masters.
I hate the regime that is presently ruling the Soviet Union, The
Soviet government uses terror, subversion and police state methods to achieve
its aims.
I desire a life of freedom, Which is not possible for a citizen of
the U.S.S.R.
The above statement has been made by me in my own hand, of my own
free will, in the solemn hope that it will contribute to the inevitable success
of the free world's struggle against international communism.
64
57.2p.
1112.1100.16.11116
THE GREATEST FLIGHT FROM COMMUNISM: 3,500,000 LEAVE EAST GERMANY
By George Bailey
'-j."-;.4.'"????? (14r. Bailey is a well-known writer on
Central and East European developments. He lived for
several years in Berlin after World War II and knows
that city intimately. His home now is in Vienna.)
Of all the countries of the Sino-Soviet bloc which have lost refugees
since the end of World War II -- a total of 12,000,000 in thirteen years -- the
Soviet Zone of Germany has lost the most. In that time, more than 3,500,000
East Germans have fled to the free German Federal Republic -- a refugee total
amounting to more than 20 percent of the present East German population.
The 1958 issue of the Statisticalarook published in the Soviet
Zone, admits that the population there has decreased by 1,076,465 since the
so-called German Democratic Republic was founded in 1949, despite the influx
into the Zone from the Soviet controlled areas farther East. Communist East
Germany today is the only area in continental Europe with a declining popu-
lation,
This depletion has already drastically affected the basic structure
of the East German population. In a speech in July 1958, East German Premier
Otto Grotewohl was unusually frank on this score:
"It is a fact", he said, "that the German Democratic Republic ...
today numbers only 17,300,000 persons." (According to figures published by
the Federal Ministry for All-German Affairs, the population of the East Zone
is now under seventeen million,)
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THE GREATEST FLIGHT FROM COMMUNISM: 3,500,000 LEAVE EAST GERMANY
Grotewohl added that this loss had seriously affected the birth rate,
which continues to decrease. "In 1951 we had 16.9 births for every thousand
inhabitants", he said. "In 3.952 it was 16.7, a year later 16.4, and in 1957
only 15.6". East Germany now has the lowest birth rate in Europe. Worse, the
surplus of births over deaths, according to the Statistical Year Book of the
GDR, dwindled from 5.5 in 1951 to 2.8 in 1957. Today there is no surplus at
all, the number of births being at least matched by the number of deaths.
As a result of this trend, the proportion of old people in East
Germany has risen sharply. "At present", Grotewohl went on, "two men must work
in order to support a third who is retired". He confessed that "the continuing
flight from the Republic is problem No. 1, a problem to which we have in every
case takon a frivolous and very formal attitude. This cannot go on".
The flight of millions of East Germans from the Soviet Zone has be-
devilled and baffled Communist authorities ever since the Soviet occupation be-
gan. Though the number of refugees varies from year to year (in 1953, the year
of the East German revolt, the flaw reached an all time high of over 330,000)
annual totals are always staggeringly large. They have never fallen under
165,0004.
The desperate attempts of the S.E.D. or Socialist Unity (1,e. Commun.
1st) Party of East Germany to halt this movement have not only failed but back-
fired. The mass exodus of East Germans to West Germany in the summer of 1958
was the greatest since 1953. On one weekend in August, some five thousand ref.
ugees crossed from East to West Berlin and asked for asylum.
Even more alarming than the greatly increased numbers, from the stand-
point of the Soviet Zone regime, was the Changed quality of the refugees. These
66
2
THE GREATEST FLIGHT FRCM COMMUNISM: 3,500,000 LEAVE EAST GERMANY
were the doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers and scientists -- the cream of
East Germany's professional, academic and technical intelligentsia, who have
long enjoyed high earnings and special treatment under the cormtmists. In the
last four years, 40,000 professional men and women from the East have sought
asylum in West Berlin. Among them were 2,700 doctors, 1,100 engineers, 12,000
teachers, and 400 university professors. Professor Josef Haemel, the reotor
of the famous University of Jena, defected to West Berlin in August 1958 ten
days before the much-publicized queAricentennial jubilee of that institution.
The most immediately critical loss took place among the doctors. Al.
most a thousand (927) fled Westward during 1958. This is more than six percent
of the total number of doctors in East Germany. One statistic tells the story:
ingest Germany there is one doctor for every 700 persons. Because of the
flight of the doctors, there is now only one for every 1,700 in East Germany.
Whole counties in East Germany are now without a single physiciano In some
hospitals in the Soviet Zone, young assistantdoctors, who have just passed 'their
medical examinations, work as doctors in charge of entire wards or departments.
In early 1958, to partially cover the loss, the East German authorities began
importing doctors from Communist Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria,but without their
families, to prevent their defection also
Entire faculties of large universities in East Germany have been closed
down because of the flight of qualified personnel. The same thing has happened
and continues to happen in factories. Last year almost all the key managerial
and technical personnel of the Potsdam Electrical Works fled to West Berlin --
virtrisaly in a body. The industrial labor force -- and the cadre system, which
is the life blood of every Communist regime -- has been riddled.
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THE GREATEST FLIGHT FROM CCMMUNISM: 3,5000000 LEAVE EAST GERMANY
More than fifty percent of all East German refugees throughout the last
fourteen years were under twenty-five years of age. An. estimated 24,000 second-
ary-school graduates and young university students have fled since 1954. In some
cases, whole classes of students with their teachers have crossed the line.
Seventy-five percent of the East German refugees have been of working age -- a
blow Lo a state whose industry is already lagging because of labor shortages.
It was Communist Party Chief- Walter Ulbrichtgs announcement of the
"Twelve-Hundred Days Plan", under which East Germany was to equal and better
West Germany's living standard in some three years (a plan accompanied by
extreme Party pressure on all intellectuals), that precipitated the mass exodus
of the very people he needed most. Six months after the plan was announced, tie
East Zona government admitted a shortage of more than twenty thousand skilled
laborers. Today, almost a year after the announcement, the shortage verges on
forty thousand.
Despite the severity of the many strictures imposed by the East
German government on the population, "political pressure" ranks only third
among the reasons given by the refugees for their flight. The most fivquent
reason given is the "unsatisfactory or insufficient education of children".
Specifically this refers to the increased exclusion fram higher schooling of
the children of intellectuals in favor of "workers' and peasants' offspring".
The second reason is the "lack of opportunity to travel abroad" 2--, 'tamed" in
most cases meaning West Germany. Thus, ironically, a measure introduced to re-
strict the opportunity for flight becomes a reason for flight.
The German Federal Republic has never encouraged the refugee flight.
The Deputy Mayor of West Berlin, Franz Amrehn, said recently, "West Berlin has
68
?
THE GREATEST FLIGHT FROM COMMUNISM: 3,500,000 LEAVE EAST GERMANY
never desired that the East Germans leave their homes. We have always asked
them to try to hold out. But disapproving of the Communist regime, they were
not able to live under it or hold out. And so they fled."
In the last few years the East German authorities have introduced
several measures -- some of them administrative, others of a physical security
nature -- which have partially diminished the main flow of refugees. The most
recent of these was the severe limitation of travel permits from East to West
Germany. Only 57,500 East Germans were allowed to travel to the Federal
Republic in 1958, as against 227,000 in 1957. During 1959 the number promises
to total less than,50,000.
An earlier East German administrative measure was a December 1957
decree that it is a criminal offense, punishable as treason, to flee the Soviet
Zone. Those who attempt to flee and are intercepted, or friends and relatives
who help in any way -- even by silence -- face up to three years' imprisonment
at hard labor. In some instances, death sentences for what the regime calls
Mepublikflucht" (flight from the republic) have been imposed.
Tho most telling physical security measure was introduced ten years
ago and has been steadily increased ever since. This was the installation of
the "Iron Curtain" -- the sealing off of East Germany from West Germany along
the zonal boundary by means of barbed wire -- some of it electrified -- a
plowed strip 30 feet wide, machine-gun and searchlight towers and a "restricted
zone" five kilometers deep. In addition, regime publications announcoa in ally
1959, each of the 40,000 East German border police who patrol the "Iron Curtain"
will in the future be accompanied by a member of the so-called "fighting groups"--
the armed militia of the factories and state-owned plants in the Soviet Zone --
to double the barriers against escape.
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THE GREATEST FLIGHT FROM COMONISM: 3,500,000 LEAVE EAST maimANy
As a result of these measures, the percentage of refugees from East to
West Germany Passing through Berlin has steadily increased. Through 1957 it was
40 percent. In early 1958, when inter-zonal travel was first restricted by
East Germany, the percentage jumped to sixty. By the middle of 1958 it was
eighty. Berlin has thus become virtually the last escape hatch to the West.
The East German authorities cannot prevent travel to East Berlin from
the East Zone because the Soviet sector of the city serves as the capital of
the so-called German Democratic Republic. They have not -- as yet -- been able to
seal off East Berlin f.rom West Berlin for more than a few days at a time, and tiler
illegally. The access to any place within the limits of Greater Berlin is guar-
anteed by the Four Power Statute of 1945. To seal off East Berlin permanently
would revise a change of status --which is precisely what the Soviet-inspired
Eerlin crisis is designed to do. The main and immediate purpose of staging the
crisis, many observers believe, was to stop the flow of refugees from East to
Wee Germany by having the sector boundary which divides the city recognized as
a State boundary. Having purposely or inadvertently narrowed down the means of
mass exodus to Berlin, it is now a question of eliminating Berlin as the last
point of exit.
Meanwhile, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after
year, the refugees from communism pour through the great hole in the Iron Curtain
that West Berlin represents. The reunification of Germany, so far as the German
people is concerned, is in fact taking place .... in West Germany.
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'
50-Yr 20
A
A
.?
zIagiptra,wcteVIgent
4414k
??????
TW*1.7.Fal
The flight of millions of
East Germans from the Soviet
Zone has baffled Communist
regime officials since the
Russian occupation began.
More than 3,500,000 refugees
from East Germany have
escaped to the German
Federal Republic since the
end of World War II.
Here, before the Communists
increased border controls, a
West German policeman helps
two women from the Soviet
Zone cross the "Iron Curtain"
at Helmstedt. Much of the
barbed wire is now elec-
trified; in addition, at
many points there are
concrete barriers and
watch tOWerii.
,-aftn-anmmh;sitiminp.SrAMIIINIVArllMlgf-VMastAMimmBpdawiazpr?.
...._ -..e.gmilmmormirms:7?,.........7
. .......,?a.m.s.i....m..m...miwtimmmn.... Ammea.......,...., _.
.426, . . .... . .. . . . .,... . . . ? . : ..._., 2.... . ... .. . ...? .. 7,.. ...
-. 11 _ 7, ;si''.77.'tr.:?._ ' i I 1
? 1
1 "" ?. 11 1, Ail?
,pj, 1.1
.4 , i
? ? 40).. ??71/1..' , :41k. .. : e -. I .44 ...,4,.: :4
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? . .. . , . ? 14 ,
fr yi---?--4-
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t?i; .0..9i .'
. e 12 ' 0;1
;746. f2 41711.0):::.;.'44 '147. 'li Tr 4:'' 7a72...ir'Fir . 1 1iq.
40 r-- i 11%
46.1
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?
This many refugees -- 3,000 -- left East Germany in a single day in 1953,
the year of the East German uprising, which was suppressed by Soviet tanks.
Six years later, in 1959, an estimated 6,000 a week were still fleeing
communism.
These escapees found temporary shelter in a factory building in West Berlin
while they waited to be air-lifted to a new life in free West Germany.
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EAST GERMAN REFUGEES FROM PROFESSIONAL CLASSES
LAWYERS
DOCTORS
PHARMACISTS
UNIVERSITY
TEACHERS
OTHER
TEACHERS
ENGINEERS &
TECHNICIANS
STUDENTS
TOTAL
1954
234
270
109
28
2,1)45
1,610
879
5,175
1955
157
344
108
56
2,720
2,475
1, 835
7,695
1956
156 .
467
125
43
2,453
2,672
1,431
7,347
1957
71
440
99
58
2.293
2, 196
1, 894
7,051
1958
75
1,242
184
208
3,089
2,345
2,522
9,665
TOTAL
693
2,733
625
393
12,600
11,298
8,561
36,933
iNCREASE FOR
1958 OVER 1957
4
802
85
150
796
149
628
2, 614
PERCENT OF
INCREASE
6
180
86
259
35
7
33
37
THE ROAD TO BERLIN
By Norman Cousins
From The Saturd.lv Review
Reprinted by permission
A man, his wife, and their teem-age son came into the long rectan-
gular room. They were sturdily and warmly dressed. The man was well-built;
his skin had the glow of excellent health* But there was a suggestion of
weariness in the way he held his head. His wife showed her fatigue more
clearly. She stared sadly out of swollen dark eyes. The boy was thin and
stooped; his face was drawn and expressionless.
The man spoke in a low voice as he told his story. He was in
his late forties. He had just come from Saxony, in East Germany. He said
he was an electrical engineer and contractor. He showed me photographs
of his home and his place of business with its modern equipment. Then he
spoke about life in East Germany. He had done rather well in business,.
and he had no complaints. But some months ago he began to run into diffi-
culties. He was a member of Jehovah's Witnesses. While the authorities
did not interfere directly with his religious practices or activities,
there were various annoyances that increased in frequency and severity
with each passing month. The tax examiners would spend more and more
?.411
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THE ROAD TO BERLIN
time combing through his books and asking him qUestions. The people who
worked for him began to feel petty pressures.
Then, one night, a pan came to the house, flashed an official's
card of one kind or another, and told the engineer he was wanted for
questioning at once. The engineer did not return home until the following
evening. All night and day he had been questioned. While he was gone the
house had been searched.
It was then that the engineer reached his decision to give up
his home, his business, everything he owned, and attempt to begin a new
life in West Germany.
The first part of the break came when the engineer's 23-year-old
daughter was chosen as a delegate to the World Congress of Jehovah's Wit-
nesses, meeting in Yankee Stadium in New York. She stayed in the United
States for some weeks. On the way back, according to plan, she went to
live in West Germany.
The big moment arrived several hours before I met the engineer.
He and his family got into their car and drove to the outskirts of East
Berlin. Then they abandoned their automobile, walked to the nearest sub-
way station, and took the train to West Berlin. (There is complete free-
dom of Movement between East and West Berlin on the trams and subways.)
When they emerged, they walked to the central relocation center for peo-
ple who were fleeing from East Berlin or East Germany. All they had taken
with them was a small suitcase of clothing and a briefcase containing busi-
ness and family papers.
711
THE ROAD TO BERLIN
At the relocation center they were directed to the long rec-
tangular room where they would be registered and where officials would
obtain from them information essential to any effort to resettle them in
other parts of West Germany. It was here that I met them. In the front
of the room was the desk of the camp supervisor who explained the pur-
pose of the forms the engineer was asked to fill out.
The supervisor explained that the family would stay at the
relocation center for four or five days. By that time a place would be
found for them near Frankfurt, where their daughter was staying and
where they had friends. A small sum of money would be provided to heli
him get started. After that, he would be on his awn. There was a de- ?
mand for engineers of all sorts and he should be able to find a job. No
one could guarantee, of course, that he could establish a business as
large or as flourishing as the one he had just left; but he ought to hold
his own. He would stay at the relocation center for several days while
this was being arranged. Then, ie and his family would be flown to a city in
West Germany where officials were prepared to offer him every assist-
ance. (Citizens of East Germany or East Berlin proper who cross over to
West Berlin are very seldom permitted to settle in West Berlin. The city
is already overpopulated, with consequent problems of housing and employ-
ment.
many,
Hence they are flown from Berlin, which is an island in East (3er-
to a redistribution center like Frankfurt in-West Germany.)
The supervisor asked the engineer to-return to the same room
the following morning when he would meet representatives of the occupying
powers of Berlin, the United States, Great Britain and France. He would
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TEE ROAD TO BERLIN
be questioned again about his reasons for leaving and about the conditions
of the area from Which he came.
The engineer and his family then were invited to the dining
rosin of the relocation center for the noonday meal.
The dining roan was situated not more than 100 feet from the
registration unit. Several hundred people were queued up irregularly in
front of the dining room. The room was large and bright. It was fairly
modern in design, with ceiling to floor windows on one side. It looked
more like a college cafeteria than a refugee food center.
As each person passed by the serving section, he was handed a
deep aluminum dish containing generous portions of boiled beef, cabbage
and potatoes. This was the main meal. At night the serving would consist
of a large bowl of soup and bread.
The dining room had accommodations for 500 people. This meant
that each chair would be put to use several times for each meal, for an
average of 3,000 people were cared for each day at the center. The usual
time for each person to be served and fed ran 15 minutes.
Most of the people in the dining room were middle-aged, though
the cries of youngsters could be heard now and then over the scraping of
chairs and the hubbub of mealtime talk. A young man of about 25 came over
to where we were standing and asked if he could be of help. After a mo-
ment or two we were chatting freely. He said this was his third day at
the relocation center. He was unmarried. He was an animal trainer in a
traveling circus in East Germany. It had been made clear to him that if
he expected to move ahead in his job he ought to become interested in
THE ROAD TO BERLIN
politieal matters in a way that might advance the welfare of the German
Democratic People's Government. In short, join the party. When he had
failed to do so he lost his job. It was then that he decided to cross
over to West Berlin.
Standing next to the animal trainer was a poorly dressed, tall,
ruddy-faced woman of about 55. She listened to the young man's story,
nodding when he spoke about having been advised to become more interested
in political matters. In her own case, she said, there had been some
slight pressure but no penalties when she failed to accede. Her trouble
was that she had tried to smuggle medicines from West Berlin for a friend
who worked alongside her in the factory. She was apprehended, but man-
aged to get away before the trial. When I asked where she would go and
what she intended to do, she shook her head and said she didn't know.
In going over the records with the supervisor of the relocation
center, I learned that there had been a marked shift in the type Of emigre
since the first wave in 1945. From 1945 through 1953, most of the people
who came across the line were hardship cases. This was especially true
in 1948 and 1953 when East Germany experienced a severe food shortage.
Some of the people who came to West Berlin to receive free food packages
in 1953 never went home.
From 1954 to 1956 there seemed to be an influx of young people --
students and recent graduates in search of education without indoctrination.
Bit in the last year or two middle-aged people, many of them well educated
and in the professions, seemed to predominate. The reasons they now give
have less to do with hardship than with intellectual or religious convic-
tion, as in the case of the engineer.
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THE ROAD TO BERLIN
The recent defections, it appears, may be more painful to the
East .German Government than earlier ones. Just in the three-month period
from September through November of 1958, for example, East Germany has
lost 360 physicians; 728 engineers and technicians; 1217 professors and
teachers; 671 writers, journalists, editors; 775 students undergraduate
and postgraduate. The total in all these categories for the first 11 months
of 1958 was well over 9,000.
Even tIlim number, of course, is only a small fraction of the grand
total of all the people who resettled in West Germany during 1958. (Offi-
cial figures for 1958, released at year's end by the West German Government,
totalled 204,061. Since the end of World War II; move than 3,500,000 East
Germans have moved to West Germany.)
One of the specific effects of the population shift has been a
manpower shortage in East Berlin and East Germany in general, especially
in skilled jobs. In West Germany, exactly the opposite has happened. The
unemployment problem, while not critical, is nevertheless a matter of in-
creasing concern to West German officials. East Germany has tried to capi-
talize on the situation by promising a job to anyone from the Western side
who would like to migrate. Takers have been extremely few.
There can be little doubt that the constant manpower drain on
East Germany has been one of the main reasons behind the determination of
the Soviet Union to close the West Berlin gateway. Any country, even a
large one, that loses physicians at the rate of 1,200 per year, and engi-
neers and scientists at the rate of 3,000 a year, is going to be forced to
plug the hole.
78
A.
THE ROAD TO BERLIN
In withdrawing from Berlin, and in calling upon the Western
occupying powers to withdraw too, the U.S.S,R, is playing upon the deep-
rooted desire of the German people to get rid of the outsider. But the
desire is somewhat mixed, to say the least. Almost any West Berliner you
speak to may brighten perceptibly at the suggestion that all foreigners
in a position of authority over him should leave the country. But he
doesn't want to lose any of the benefits that come from the fact that the
West, and, in particular, the United States, has a strong stake in West
,Germany. The German people are not unmindful of the fact that their as-
tounding recovery from. the Second World War was speeded in a large measure
by the billions of dollars supplied by the United States. Nor are they
unaware or the fact that this aid has been far greater than that supplied
to France, and certainly to Poland, both of which were on America's side
during the war and neither of which approaches the present economic power
of Germany. Moreover, there is genuine fear that if all the occupying
powers withdraw from Berlin, it will only be a question of time before
Berlin will become an integral part of East Germany.
That Berlin today is split down the middle -- economically, .
philosophically, politically, socially -- is one of the most visible And
dramatic facts of the modern world. Indeed, the difierences between the
two sections are so great as to suggest that they are at least a continent
and a decade apart. The differences have less to do with jobs and bread
than with the contrasting personality of the two sectors. Economically,
both sections have improved prodigiously in the past five years. East Ber-
lin no longer has the bleak and somber aspect it did only five years ago.
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THE ROAD TO BERLIN
The people are better dressed, obviously better fed, and they no longer
seem to amble. The stores now ere well stOoked with food. But there is
still a heaviness to the place, a feeling suggested perhaps by absence of
people on the streets, especially at night, and by the lack of variety or
grace in the architecture of the new housing projects, although it must
be recognized that the Stalinstadt housing development is the largest of
its kind in the world. It provides low-cost housing for 30,000 families,
many of whom, however, were admitted not only on the basis of need, but
of political orientation.
West Berlin does not have the order or uniformity that is so
apparent in East Berlin. In fact, much of it approaches the chaotic.
But it is a sparkling chaos, full of artistic glints and human electricity.
The visitor who comes to it today after having seen East Berlin first, as
I did, feels as though he has been catapulted into a new age. There are
people in the streets and in the shops in West Berlin; there is a swirl of
life and bright lights and there is creative ferment. The city gives the
impression that it is bursting with life, motion, vital thrust.
When I asked several East Berliners why there should be such a
large migration to West Berlin, the usual answer was that those who leave
are mostly tax dodgers or people in tax trouble. It was added that there
was no economic reason for them to leave; food was in good supply, prices
were reasonable, rents were low, medical services were available at little,
or no cost, and jobs were to be had by all. In contrast, it was argued,
housing was expensive and difficult to find in West Berlin and unemploy-
ment was widespread.
80
eV
THE ROAD TO BERLIN
There seemed to .be little ambiguity, however, in the replies to
the same question when put to West Berliners. -First of all, they said,
there was enough movement of people out of West Berlin to West Germany to
lceep the unemployment problem from becoming too severe. Next, the lure
of inexpensive housing wasn't too great in view of the fact that it was
tied up with a system of political activity and rewards. Third, thegi
wasn't too much enthusiasm about the kind of work that might be available.
Most East Berliners have their "Soll," individual work quotas. In any
event, one man told me with a smile, the incentives offered by East Germany
are not quite irresistible.
This article appeared in the January 3, 1959, issue
of The Saturday Revi.ew, published in the United States
and containing articles on general and literary subjects
as well as reviews of recently published books. The
writer is editor of that magazine.
The article has been abridged. It may be republished as
a single article or in a book in English and in trans-
lation outside the United States and Canada under the
following conditions: Credit must be given to the author
and The Saturday Review; no further abridgment may he
made; the following copyright notice must be carried:
q) 1959.by Saturday Review, Inc.
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A ten-member East German family used
this ancient truck to crash through
a double barrier at the border with
West Germany, within range of Com-
munist guns on a nearby watchtower.
Friedrich Griefs, 47, accompanied by
his wife and eight children, used
his 100-horsepower truck as a bat-
tering ram to knock down a barrier
of three-foot high paving blocks and
a barbed wire fence more than eight
feet high.
AN EAST GERMAN FARM FAMILY CRASHES THROUGH ME IRON CURTAIN
By Mark Piros
Friedrich Graefe, his wife, and eight children ranging in age from two to thirteen, are hav-
ing their first meal in free West Germany after fleeing from. the Soviet Zone of Germany.
Graefe was facing a prison term for making derogatory remarks about the Communist regime.
He was on a list of persons scheduled for arbitrary resettlement somewhere deep in East
Germany, and he had heard that Communist officials were planning to take away his trucking
license, which'would have deprived him of his livelihood. All of these things contributed
to his decision that escape from the Soviet Zone was the only solution.
One of the more dramatic escapes of East Germans during 1959 was that
of the ten-member Friedrich Graefe family, which used an ancient truck to crash
through a double barrier at the border, within range of machine guns on a nearby
watchtower.
The determined Graefesp although their method of overcoming Iron Cur-
tain obstancles was unusutoly striking, are in many waystypical of the more
than 3,500,000 East Germans who have become refugees from the Soviet Zone since
the end of World War
Following the escape Mr. Graefe told a West German newsman, "You can
take my word for it that I am fortunate I" The 47-year4old farmers accompanied
by his wife Lisa and eight of his 13 children, used his 100-horsepower truck
as a battering ram to crash through a barricade of three-foot high paving
blocks and a barbed vire fence more than eight feet high -- all within range
of guns manned by border guards at the nearby watchtower.
According to West German police, the escape took place so quickly that
the Graefe family was safely in the custody of a West German patrol before Com-
munist guards realized what had happened.
The Graefe family lived at Rlettenberg, two miles from the border,
where the father farmed and ran a transport business. He told West German
refugee officials that he left for both political and economic reasons,
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re altlaSiilimmosP
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AN EAST GERMAN FARM FAMILY CRASHES THROUGH THE IRON CURTAIN
although his immediate motive for escaping was fear of imprisonment. In No
vember 1958 he had been arrested and charged with making derogatory remarks
about the Communist state -- he had said, among other things, "In the gasg
German Democratic Republic, all is collapse..." Be had also refused to take
part, as ordered, in political activitien, and in addition one of his sons had
fled to West Germany.
Graefe said he also had heard reports that Communist officials were
planning to take away his license to practice a trade, which would have deprived
him of his livelihood. He faced an almost certain prison term, and was also on
a list of persons scheduled for arbitrary resettlement at points deep in East
Germany. All of these things, in addition to general economic hardships and
harassment by the regime which made maintaining his farm and trucking business
increasingly difficult, convinced him that escape from East Germany was the only
solution.
The exact place of his border crossing had been discreetly investigated
by Graefe some weeks before the actual escape. The spot most suitable for a
break-through was found near Wiedigshof, where the boundary forms an open
rectangle leading to the Federal Republic, although it was heavily barricaded
there. At almost the same spot a previous escape had taken place a year earlier,
when another East German family broke through the fence with an armored truck.
Although following that escape border police had added the heavy concrete blocks
to the barbed wire "Iron Curtain," Graefe thought this section to the border
still could be breached.
Kt.!?
- ....Li,
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AN EAST MEAN FA( FAKELY CRASHES THROUGH THE IRON CURTAN
Graefe then obtained a special permit to visit a grown daughter in
Schierke, a neighboring Soviet Zone village. His family was permitted to
accompany him on the visit. Even the children, Who might otherwise have let
a word slip out, believed they weremerely going to see their older sister.
Nor did the three older children wham Graefe left in the Soviet Zone have any
Inkling of the escape until it was over. This was for their protection as
well as for that of the farmer and his younger children; even knowledge of
what the Communist regime calls "Republikflucht" (flight from the republic)
can be punished as treason in East Germany.
On Saturday, April 4, 1959, about 2 p.m., Graefe loaded his wife
and eight children, aged from two to 14 years, into his 15-year-old "Hinomag"
truck. The parents and two youngest children squeezed into the cab, the
other six children crouching on a small rear platform. NO possessions were
taken except blankets and a little food, for their story of going to visit
another daughter had to seem plausible if they stopped.
This precaution proved vise, for as the Graefes moved along
Gudesleben highway parallel to the zonal border an officer of the regime's
"People's police" stopped the truck. Since all Graefe 'a papers were in
order, however, the policeman only smiled at the children and allowed the
group to pass.
Near Gudesleben the border is neavily fortified with massive
concrete barrier blocks and a network of barbed wire some eight feet high.
A, 'watchtower, manned day and night by border guards, is scarcely half a
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AN EAST GERMAN FARM FAMILY CRASHES THROUGH THE IRON CURTAIN
kilometer away, and the highway itself, because of its proximity to the
border, is under constant surveillance.
Despite its many hazards, Graefe had determined that this area
offered his best opportunity for an escape attempt. He suddenly turned off
the highway into a road leading to the small community of Wiedigshof. He
looked back once more and then headed his truck for the border. The heavy
truck forced its way through the barrier stones and then smashed through the
network of barbed wire. Graefe later said his fear that the barbed wire would
tear the front tires did not materialize, although the handbrake was damaged.
Because Graefe had selected a spot only partially visible from the
nearest police watchtower, the refugees gained a few precious minutes. Clouds
of dust from the dr,r roads also helped camouflage the break. The last remain-
ing obstacles, a number of large rocks, were hastily removed, and the truck
crossed the newly-ploughed field which makes up the so-called "dead zone" as
speedily as possible. The family feared to travel any farther near the boun-
dary even on the West German
known to shoot down escapees
"But on the other,
side -- for the Communist border police have been
already over the line.
free side," Graefe told a West German newsman,
"stood a German customs official who pointed out the direction to me. He led
me over soft ground away from the threatening watchtower. He signalled to me
not to stop in any case, and thus I and my family got farther and farther away
from the threat of the watchtower and its crew. After a kilometer-long cross-
country trip, the person who helped me to freedom made a sign to me, near
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42r2Ti
71..1
AN EAST GERMAN FARM FAMILY CRASHES THROUGH TRE IRON CURTAIN
Wiedigshof-Malkenried, to get on the hard road, and only then could I breathe
freely again."
The villagers of Walkenried were amazed when the farmer, his forty-
year-old wife and eight children suddenly appeared. The group proceeded to
Bad Sachsa, where the family has relatives who will_help them resettle.
Frustrated Communist officials in Klettenberg immediately confis-
cated the Graefe farm and cattle, and took away identity cards from the two
older children who had chosen to remain in the Soviet Zone.
Within minutes of the Graefe escape, East German border police
swarmed over the breached Iron Curtain. Reinhold Koenig, a West German cus-
toms official stationed at the border, said: "It was axe a beehive. Within
an hour they had closed the gap in the double fence again."
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irrmilii0Moinemmomf,
-w?q:i7Tarilam.11-Treman-m7;acr
THE 200,000 HUNGARIANS WHO MADE HISTORY
71:
Nearly 200,000 Hungarians fled to Austria and Yugoslavia in late 1956 and early 1957,
following Soviet suppression of the freedom revolt in Hungary. The first few days, while
the refugees fought their way through snow and mud, Hungarian border guards turned their
eyes away, and only a few Soviet armored vehicles and tanks attempted to interfere. Within
a few days crossing the frontier became difficult and dangerous, but still the stream went
on without interruption. When regular patrolling of the border began on the Hungarian side,
crossings were made at night in freezing weather, often in dramatic circumstances.
Here volunteer workers on the Austrian side, in sight of a watchtower in Communist Hungary,
wait to help new arrivals in January 1957.
Thousands of men, women and children
risked death or imprisonment in the
spontaneous migration which made
refugees of approximately one out of
every forty-five Hungarians during
late 1956 and early 1957.
Photographed on arrival at a farm-
house on the Austrian side of the
border, in January 1957, is this
little girl who was separated from
her mother in the terrifying escape
from communism.
By Mark Piros
? r.t ? 4 ? 2 ? ?:?;.
For sheer drama, few historical episodes can rival the events of
October and November, 19560 when millions of Hungarians revolted against Soviet
domination only to see their hopes for self-rule end in mass bloodshed and the
imposition of new Communist oppressions.
Today, almost three years later, it is equally apparent that of the
millions of individuals who have become refugees from communism since World
War II, no single group has made a greater impact on world opinion than the
nearly 200,000 Hungarians who crossed their country's borders in late 1956
and early 1957.
Thousands of men, women and children risked death or imprisonment
in that spontaneous migration which made refugees of approximately one out of
every 45 Hungarians.
The Hungarian uprising, which began on October 23, 1956 as an unarmed
student demonstration, quickly flamed into an open, nation-wide revolt against
Soviet and Communist control.
For a week Hungary was free. But in the early morning hours of NOvem-
bar 4, while the Hungarians
withdrawal of the Red Army,
and armored cars, squadrons
were still negotiating with Russian officials for
Soviet forces attacked Hungary with 4,600 tanks
of light bombers, and 200,000 soldiers.
That day the first big stream of refugees began fleeing westward
toward free Austria. Escapees from towns and villages near the border -- most
of them farmers and factory workers with their families, students and appren-
tices -- arrived in Austria that first day.
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[
THE 200,000 HUNGARIANS WHO MADE HISTORY'
j.,????????Milt,
At first the Hungarian refugees fled in buses, lorries, tractors and
farm wagons piled high with luggage, or on foot, carrying what they could on
their backs. Others used oxcarts, handcarts, bicycles and wheelbarrow. Many
walked the entire distance from Budapest to the border -- some 150 miles. Their
faces showing sorrow and resignation, they trudged silently forward, in what
seemed to be an unending stream.
At first, while the refugees fought their way through snow and mud,
Hungarian border guards turned their eyes away, and only a few Soviet armored
vehicles and tanks attempted to interfere. Behind the first waves of refugees,
full train loads arrived at border stations carrying would-bc escapees. Railway-
men, local officials, policemen and farmers all assisted the exodus, and often
joined it.
Ten thousand Hungarians crossed into Austria within the first thirty-
six hours. Within a few days, the crossing of the frontier became difficult
and dangerous, but still the stream went on without interruption. When regular
patrolling of the border began on the Hungarian side, the crossings were made
at night in freezing weather, often in dramatic circumstances. After Soviet
bombs destroyed the frontier bridges, exhausted refugees crossed the Einser
Canal, which forms part of the border, by boat or made improvised bridges of
logs. Some swam across the deeper stretches and floundered the rest of the way
through deep mud.
The peak month was November, when as many as 5,000 persons crossed the
border each night. Writing of "The Bridge at Andau," the crossing point for
thousands of Hungarians, James A. Michener said, "The dlimax at Andau came on
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THE 200,000 HUNGARIANS WHO MADE HISTORY
Wednesday, November 21, when the maximum number of refugees came into Austria
across the Einser Canal. Thousands of Hungarians sought refuge*...Then, as dusk
fell, there was an ominous halt to the procession...Suddenly there was a dull,
distant garrummph! A refugee who had been waiting for a chance to escape came
rushing down the canal bank shouting, 'They dynamited the bridge!',
"Night now enveloped us, and we thought of the thousands of refugees
who were huddling in chilled groups throughout the Hungarian swamps. They were
only a few feet from freedom, seeking desperately some way to cross that final
barrier of the canal and the steep banks they must negotiate before reaching
Austria...Toward midnight a brave team of three Austrian college students lugged
logs into Hungary and repaired the dynamited bridge -- not well, but enough for
a precarious foothold, and by this means they saved more than 2,000 people that
night alone."
By December of 1956 the Soviet tanks and Communist guards stationed at
the border began to pinch off the flood: the first week in December, an average
of 2,532 refugees fled eadhav the second week, 1,724 a day; the third week
1,185; the fourth week 866. For the last three days, an average of 714 escaped
each 24 hours. Sometimes the Russians shot down the would-be escapees; at other
times, in unaccountable caprice, they let them go. The ragged, desperate stream
of Hungarian refugees continued to pour toward the border, despite emergency
decrees enacted by the Soviet-imposed regime in Budapest defining expatriation
as & crime. Persons engaged in organizing clandestine emigration were subject to
prison sentences ranging from six months to five years. Persons who knew about
but failed to denounce a clandestine frontier-crossing that had been planned or
put into effecticould be imprisoned for as long as two years.
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' THE 200,000 HUNGARIANS WHO MADE HISTORY
The large majority of escapees were young people -- 70 percent of all
refugees from Hungary were under 30. They were students, technicians, teachers,
artists, craftsmen and professional people, skilled workers and miners. There
were many family units, including large numbers of children.
One close observer said: "There is perhaps no social stratum which was
not represented among them. This was neither an exodus of the poor norbof the
persecuted upper class; the range of professions and of classes was just as
large as that of Hungarian society itself."
Most refugees said they left Hungary because their lives were in danger
they feared liquidation or deportation. But there were other reasons. Many left
because they,had lost their homes or families during the freedom revolt, because
they could not accept the idea of living under a
cause after almost fifteen years there was a way
There was a feeling of urgency in the very air.
Communist regime again, or be-
out and one simply had to go.
The neighbor left, the office
staff left, the grocer and the corner policeman and the doctor left.
There were almost as many dramatic escape stories as there were refugees
The writer George Paloczi-Horvath, who now lives in London, wrote of his own
experience:
"In the last days of November the frontier was already crammed with
Russian tanks and AVO /secret policg monsters. The problem was how to escape
with my wife and year-old son. I could not risk challenge by Russian or AVO
guards on the route. We had to choose a swampy region of the frontier where even
the Russians do not like to wade about. We made a fur sack for the baby. A
doctor gave us medicine to make him sleep during the long frontier passage. We
were joined by my friend and former prison-companion Paul Ignotus -- another
writer -- and his wife.
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Fq?
If?
?,5
14.
?,T
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THE 200,000 HUNGARIANS WHO MADE HISTORY
"It was a stormy night when a group of thirty-three of us entered the
swampy frontier region. We waded knee-deep in mud and water. The Russians kept
sending up flares. Machine guns rattled in .the distance. Each step was an enor-
mous physical effort. With my son on my shoulder, and my wife at my side, we
struggled on for hours. At one point, all our strength was gone and we lay down
on a drier piece of land, where the mud was only ankle deep. There I lay, hold-
ing my little son in my arms and looking up at the stormy sky in despair. After
an hour or so, we gathered enough strength to start wading again.
"By now we were alone in no man's land. Then we saw swiftly-moving
shadows: another group of escapees. They helped us on.
"We struggled with the swamp for another two hours. Then, at last, an
Austrian flag -- and a haystack! We collapsed."
All the refugees arrived hungry and cold, exhausted by the harrowing
experience of dodging patrols, without luggage, yet in good spirits at reaching
freedom, and knowing they would find food, shelter_and help.
With tireless devotion, civil servants, Red Cross workers and hundreds
of Austrian. and foreign volunteers organized and
along the Austro-Hungarian border, and emergency
and further inland. All refugees, upon arrival,
maintained first-aid points
reception centers in Vienna
were given warm food, blankets,
clothing, and a place to sleep. Many thousands were offered hospitality by
Austrian families, although most were sent to hastily-formed reception centers
and camps, until they were resettled in various countries of the free world.
An epilogue to the Hungarian flight was written by Francis Bondy, a
well-known Swiss journalist and editor-in-chief of the French monthly Zusmg,
who was in Budapest during the revolution:
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'YR 200,000 NUNGARIANS WHO MADE HISTORY
.611:12036X4WIWISX=riarns
"For the majority of these refugees," he wrote, "their escape from
'limitary represents a ballot cast against the land of Soviet Kommandaturas and
of. the Radar government, the most tragic but also the clearest of all possible
plebtscites. More than 200,000 Hungerians had left their own country. In itself,
this figure should suffice to keep the Hungarian tragedy, the despair and the
hope of a whole nation, well in view of world public opinion."
9)4
? ? .
6
WE FLED THE COMMUNIST BORDER WE WERE GUARDING
By Miklos Paloczy
(On a summer night in L959, 30 minutes
after midnight, two Hungarian soldiers appeared, seem-
ingly out of nowhere, on the deserted main street of
Kleyelhof, an Austrian frontier village. A few minutes
earlier they had been picking their way through ten-
foot high barbed wire, and between land mines, all
installed by the Hungarian Communist regime to prevent
its people leaving for free Austria.
Both soldiers were armed to the teeth. Each had a
Russian submachine gun with 70 cartridges, and a rocket
pistol. They were not regular Army soldiers, but en-
listed privates of the second battalion of the Hungarian
frontier guards. They wore the customary service uni-
form -- green striped flat cap, high buttoned shirt, soft
Russian boots. They had taken relatively few risks,
despith the fortifications they had crossed, for they ,
had been guarding that particular stretch on the Hungarian
side of the border. Their story is particularly timely,
for in recent months most of the few escapees from
Communist Hungary, through the tightened "Iron Curtain,"
have been border guards. This is the story of one of
those guards, Miklos Paloczy, who tells why he and a
friend left Hungary.)
I began my Army service in November 1958. / was assigned to the frontier
guards because, as a former tractor-driver on a collective farm, / was considered
"politically developed" person. Although I was not a member of the Communist Party,
I did belong to the Communist youth organization.
I liked my life as a tractor-driver. I earned good-: money and had even
bought a motorcycle. I had everything that I wanted.;. I had many friends. In the
village lived Sari, the girl I hoped to marry one day.
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WE FLED THE COMMUNIST BORDER WE WERE GUARDING
After last November I lost all this, and a lot more. My prospective
bride sent me a letter in December, cancelling our engagement. None of my
friends wrote to me. They my parents too. I knew why they
like that. They despised me because I had become an emberpecer ("head-hunter").
That is the bitter nickname which our fellow Hungarians give to those who patrol
the "Iron Curtain."
As prospective border guards we went through extremely tough military
training for three-and-a-halflmonths. We had both practical training in the
field, and political instruction. I was kept so busy that I had practically no
time to think things over.
But after we were actually assigned to the frontier area, I began to
understand things better. Whenever we had a day off -- four times a month --
we used to go to the village inn or to the local cinema. We were told by our
political officer that we must be vigilant, but at the same time very friendly
with the village population.
We were peasants and workers, just like the people in that village.
We spoke the same language. But we met only the three leaders of the local
Communist youth organization. The young people, especially the girls, shunned
us. Wherever we appeared, they kept away from us. Although they did not dare
scoff or laugh at us openly, we knew they wanted nothing to do with us.
It was a terrible life. No friends, no girls, no relatives. I had
never been so lonely. The only consolation was that a childhood friend of
mine, Sandoz-, served in the same platoon. We could not talk very often because
it would have created suspicion. We trusted each other, but we did not trust
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WE FLED THE COMMUNIST BORDER WE WERE GUARDING
anybody else. We knew that "the operatives" -- the secret police officers --
had at least one spy, if not more, in every squad. So we had to be very careful.
Our political officer kept telling us that we had to keep our eyes
open, that we had to be vigilant because the "enemies of socialism" (that is
communism) were threatening our frontiers. He explained that anybody who
wanted to leave Hungary was an enemy-or, at the best, a dupe of the enemy. We
were also told that each time we caught an escapee we would get special leave.
Then one day-a corpse was brought on a stretcher to our sentry-post.
He had been killed by-a mine, very near the border. His legs were blown off.
He was already dead when the guard shot him. He must have been about my age.
It was then that morfriend and I decided to leave the frontier guard
service. We feared that sooner or later we would face a terrible choice: either
we would have to shoot somebody dawn, or WA would be court-emartialid for having
failed to do so.
Both Sandor and I are rather peaceable fellows. We rarely quarrels
let alone hurt anybody. But our superiors expected us to hunt down and kill
innocent people Whose only crime was that they wantedto leave Hungary.
It was much easier to decide to turn our backs on that life than to
Until the summer night we fled, Sandor and I had never been together
on patrol -- perhaps because they knew we were good friends. Every guard was
responsible for his companion. We had been taught to shoot our patrol-mate
if he wanted to flee or showed cowardice. Our political officer had often
related the story of a "traitor" who was killed by fellow border-guard as
he was climbing over the barbed wire.
do it.
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Jai
WE FLED THE COMMUNIST BORDER WE WERE GUARDING
We were only waiting for the day when we would be together on patrol.
When that dey came we took the ladder from our guard tower. We knew that we
had 15 minutes before our sergeant would come by on his control-patrol. We
dragged the ladder to the barbed wire. Sandor watched while I climbed up and
then jumped to the other aide. In a second, he was also across safely.
We still had to be cautious, because there was the hundred meters of
no-man's-land to cross. Five minutes later we were in Kleyelhof. We went to
the local police station. First they thought we were chasing refugees. But
when we unbuckled our submachine guns and laid them down in the corner, they
became all smiles. They saw that we were refugees too.
We did not work out any other plan apart from the scheme of our flight.
In the West we do not "expect a baked pigeon to fly into our mouth," as we
Hungarians say -- we do not expect to succeed without work. We simply came
because we could not stand the shame of our service any longer and because we
feared that if we remainedswe would surely become murderers.
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4
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"ALL BUIDARIANS WOULD ESCAPE IF THEY COULD"
(The Story of Traiko Ivanov's Journey to Greece)
By Mark Piros.
?
In the thirteen years. since the "Bulgarian People's Republic"
became a Communist-ruled Soviet satellite in 1946, some 187,000 cAizens
of that country have fled to freedom in other lands.
This figure included approximately 175:000 ethnic Turks who
escaped to Turkey during the years when Bulgaria was undergoing its worst
period of forced collectivization and religious persecution., The other
Bulgarian refugees have trickled out by various means, through whatever
gaps they could find in the heavily guarded "Iron Curtain" which surrounds
all Soviet bloc countries.
One of the most unusual of all these Bulgarian excapes was engi-
neered by the Traiko Ivanov family: who made their way to Greece in 1958
by means of an ancient automobile which they had fashioned into a, primi-
tive tank. Traiko Ivanov's plan for the final crossing into Greece may
have been unnecessarily bizarre, but his story gives a valuable insight
into the attitudes of fear and desperation so often developed by those who,
live in Communist states.
Traiko Damianov Ivanov had lived in Dubnitsa Bulgaria, since
1935. That village is fairly close to the Yugoslav border.
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"ALL BUDZARIANS WOULD ESCAPE IF THEY COULD"
In Danitza, Ivanov had met and married. MariIca Zifko, who is now
37. Their children -- all boys -- are Lae% 20; Damian, 16; and KOnstan-
tine, 14.
A, taxi-driver by trade, Ivanov was allowed to keep his black 1927
Chrysler touring car after the Communists took over Bulgaria. But with the
fiery pride of a mountaineer, Ivanov did not like what communism was doing
to Bulgaria. He could see no future there for his three sons.
He explained later, after arriving in Greece:
"When the 'war ended, another war began for us. A new regime was
imposed on Bulgaria -- a regime which made life unbearable. I hoped that
the situation might improve, and I tried to do everything I could to sup-
port my family.. I bad a car, a 1927 Chrysler, and I carried passengers and
dealt in the black market at the same time -- I had to -- to support my
family. But I saw that nothing could save us. Every now and then I bad to
sell something from our household. And. terrorism was growing.. We not
only could not eat, we could not talk.
"In 1957 I became completely disillusioned. The idea of escap-
ing had filled my mind, during all these years. As time passed it became
more insistent. Anything would be better than the Communist hell of Bul-
garia. I was ready to go crazy. We had to escape. But how? It was
simple to talk about. But Bulgaria is an armed camp -- it is closed every-
where with barbed wire."
In the spring of 1957, Ivddolv :made a decision, The family's
ultimate objective was Greece, but they would first go to Yugoslovia, where
they had relatives. Through the pretext of a request for permission to
100
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"ALL BULGARIANS WOULD ESCAPE IF tThY COULD"
visit these relatives, the Ivanovs were able to obtain passports. Bulgarian
officials stressed, however, that the exit permits would expire in one year
and all members of the 'family must return by that time.
On April 24, 1957, Ivanov loaded his wife and three sons into his
30-year-old car and drove to the Yugoslav village of Valmeftsi. There he
earned money as a taxi-driver, trying meanwhile to think of ways to avoid
returning to Bulgaria. During all this time, the warnings he had received
from Bulgarian border officials weighed heavily on his mind.
"Time was passing," he says now. "My permit to stay in Yugoslavia
was nearing the expiration date and I would have to go back to Bulgaria."
Ivanov explains that he was so crazy with worry that he feared even to ask
for an extension.
It was in this state of extreme anxiety that Ivanov conceived the
idea of turning his ancient taxi into a home-made "tank." Still thinking
in terms of the heavily fortified Bulgarian border, he made cement blocks
and iron shields to fit in front of his car's radiator and on the sides of
the motor. His son When, working with old pipes and bits of glass and
mirrors, built a crude periscope which made it possible to steer the car
from a position on the floor.
On April 18, 1958, less than a week before the family was supposed
to return to Bulgaria, everything was ready. Ivanov? who had only seen the
fortified "Iron Curtain" around his own homeland, apparently did not realize
that the border between Yugoslavia and Greece consisted only of a simple,
wooden barrier that raised and lowered to permit traffic to proceed after
the usual customs checks. It is doubtful, however, that anything could
-c,A4tre
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"ALL BULGARIANS WOULD ESCAPE IF THEY COULD"
have distracted Ivanov at this point in his determination to reach freedom
in Greece.
His story of the crossing of the border was told in the Salonika
newspaper Makedonia:
"As I saw the wooden horizontal beam coming at me, I leaned on
my side with my face stuck to the pzriscope, pressing the accelerator with
my right foot. Two Yugoslav soldiers were on each side of the beam, but
they did nothing. A Yugoslav border official appeared in the road and
signalled to me to stop, but he only whistled as I
On the Greek side, just before 7:30 a.m.
soldiers of the Niki frontier post, in the Florina
what appeared to be a ghost car, without driver or
went by."
on April 19, astonished
area, were amazed to see
passengers, crossing into
Greece from Yugoslavia. As five people crawled out of the weird vehicle,
Ivanov called out a Greek word: "Prosphyges. gefugeei7."
Ivanov continues his narrative: "This VAS all. Behind the broken
beam, the Yugoslav officer whistled and made gestures. My wife and children
had tears of joy in their eyes -- we would never have to return to Bulgaria.
A Greek officer came to us. I told him that we were escaping from Bulgaria,
in reality. He went to the border and said something to his Yugoslav col-
league, and our journey was ended. We do not know how to thank Greece for
all these things; She received us as if we were her children."
Ivanov said that most of the Bulgarian people hate communism.
"In our village of 250 inhabitants," he added "there were only six
Communists. I know that many of our co-villagers have escaped to Greece,
but I do not know where they are. .All Bulgarians would escape if they could.
But they cannot..."
102
This is the interior of a 30-year-
old automobile in which a Bulgarian
family of five travelled to Greece.
Traiko D. Ivanov and his eldest (19)
son are in the front seat. The son
is looking through the Improvised
periscope which made it possible for
the father to guide the car from a
concealed position on the floor.
Ivanov 's wife and two younger sons
completed the family refugee group.
This view shows the Ivanov family of Bulgaria in the armored 1927 Chrysler
which they used in a dramatic escape to Greece. The father and his sons
made concrete blocks and steel plates to protect the car's engine and sides.
Following the family's escape, Traiko Ivanov said: "Bow we understand what
freedom is. We had promised ourselves to reach freedom or die."
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The most spectacular of all escapes from Albania was achieved by a tribe of nomadic shep-
herds -- thirteen men, thirteen women, and thirty children, who were members of nine family
groups -- the largest number of refugees ever to enter Greece at one time. The fifty-six
Vlach tribesmen, shown here after their safe arrival in Greece, brought along 750 sheep,
250 goats, 100 head of cattle, and 45 pack animals.
Although the border between Com-
munist Albania and free Greece is
almost inaccessible in many places,
more than 18,000 persons have fled
from that smallest Soviet satellite
since the Communist take-over in
1944.
The Nikolas brothers, from the port
city of Valona, "liberated" a small,
state-owned, diesel-powered calque,
the DINAMO, for their escape to
freedom. After drugging the skipper
and two Albanian soldiers, Thanasis
and Christos Nikolai took the small
boat southward to the greek isle of
Corfu.
?
ESCAPE FROM COMMUNIST ALBANIA
By Hark Piros
et?
The borderline between Communist Albania and Greece runs over high
Mountains, along deep ravines, and through thick forests. Communist guards,
accompanied by trained dogs, move along the Albanian side. As in all Sino-
Soviet bloc countries bordering on the free world, barriers and traps of various
kinds seal off the boundarie
s.
Escape seems impossible. Yet the people get out.
the 1944 Communist take-over of Albania, 18,000 Albanians have
The many barriers to flight, as well as the difficulties of
seem only to spur the people to find new means of escape and
of bravery they would not have dreamed of under other
years since
In the fifteen
become refugees,,
life in Albania,
to perform feats
circumstances.
The most spectacular of all escapes from Albania was achieved by a
tribe of nomadic shepherds -- 13 men, 13 women, and 30 children (moat of them
under 12), who were members of nine family groups -- the largest number of
escapees ever to enter Greece at one time. The tribe brought with them 750
sheep, 250 goats, 100 head of cattle, 45 pack animals (horses and mules), a
few farm implements, and a considerable quantity of personal belongings.
lot;
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These escapees were Xuteevlachs (usually called Vlachs), who. trace
their origin back to the days of the Roman empire. They are Orthodox Christians.
Under the Communist regime of Albania, their herds were gradually
being nationalized. Before the Communists came to power, the tribe had owned
more than 5,000 goats and sheep and 200 peak animals. Without any compensation
whatsoever, 3,000 of the goats and sheep were confiscated by the Communists and,
to settle new and exorbitant taxes, the Vlachs had to sell another 1,000 goats
and sheep. They had heard that even their remaining 1,000 sheep were to be
nationalized within a few. months. This would have made the Vlachs servants of
the state and they would have received only a monthly pittance to tend the flocks
which they formerly owned.
"We grazed our sheep, we fattened them like stall-fed lambs and we
could not enjoy anything," one of the escapees said. "The Albanian government
took everything from us. We had to give 300 grams of wool for each ewe to the
government and all the milk and cheese we made. For all this they gave us a few
pennies. So almost nothing was left to us, and we lived on milk which we used
to steal and with the maize we were allocated. We had terrible hunger."
Leaving the "Tibet of Europe," as Albania is sometimes called, was
no easy proposition for the Vlachs. The plan they ultimately adopted was based
on an ancient Vlach custom -- that of following their flocks to wherever there
was good grazing.
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ESCAPE FROM COMMUNIST ALBANIA
(Before the Communists took over, the Vlachs had spent their
winters in the ),alleysof Albania and their summers in the Greek mountains.
After Albania became a Soviet satellite, however, the Vlachs were not
permitted to summer in nearby Greece -- the shepherds were forced to remain
in Albania and make the best of whatever green grass was available.)
Planning for the escape began two years before it was actually
made. At first only four families were involved. As thl first step in their
the women and children did not know of the
scheme, the men of this group --
escape plan until it was all over -- asked the regime for permission to use
grazing land along the frontier.
The land requested was assigned to them -- but as a precaution the
Communist officials required that an additional family, one in whom the regime
had complete confidence, join the group and graze its flocks along with the
others.
The head of this fifth family, Fotos Bassios, although he was a
Communist Party member, actually became the leader of the group and used his
influence to conceal its real intentions from the Albanian officials. First,
however, he insisted that four other families (all relatives of his) be allowed
to join in the flight from Albania. So the group increased to nine families
and their flocks.
Each day the shepherds moved their animals closer to the frontier,
meanwhile studying every habit of the Communist border guards. Over the months
-
107
...xemmrwmar--
[t
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ESCAPE FROM COMMUNIST ALBANIA
the soldiers on frontier duty became so used to seeing the Vlachs grazing their
herds that they rarely paid-much attention to them. On the night set for the
escape, the guards did not think it unusual that the nomads had made their
camp practically on the border.
There was one remaining obstacle: a vicious sheep dog, used by the
border patrol and owned by one of the guards. The shepherds, however, were able
to buy the dog for 20 kilograms of cheese.
The actual border crossing took place at sunset, September 4, 1956,
when. the guards going off duty met their replacements at some distance from
the border. At this point, one of the shepherds engaged the soldiers in a
conversation, offering them some scarcecigarettes. The conversation was pro-
longed until the entire tribe, animals and all, was across the border. The
bells hanging from the animals necks had been stuffed with grass to keep them
from ringing.
At dawn the Albanian guards learned of the trick, but by then the
Vlachs and their entourage of animals were safely inside the mountains of
Greece. The shepherd who had detained the guards took a mountain path and
joined the escapees later.
One of the tribe's leaders told Greek officials that the group's
mein reason for escaping from "the Albanian hell" was the mass arrests of
innocent citizens characterized by the regime as "reactionaries." He mentioned
other examples of terrorism, as well as the nationalization of tribal flocks
and heavy state taxes.
108
ESCAPE FROM COMMUNIST ALBANIA.
He said the Vlachs had not been allowed to buy radio sets or listen
to broadcasts from other countries.
"We came here because we preferred freedom to hunger and slavery,"
the spokesman added.
Other Albanian refugees took different routes. The Nikolas brothers,
who escaped from Albania's large port city of Valona, would never have succeeded
if they had tried to go to Greece overland. Valona is far from the border, and
the two brothers knew they could never find their way through the wild, forest-
covered mountains of Albania. So they chose the sea, with which they were well
acquainted.
Thanasis, the elder brother, had been a mechanic on board a small,
state-owned, diesel-powered caique, the DINAMO. In order to escape, the Nikolas
brothers decided they would also have to "liberate" the boat, its 65-year-old
Albanian skipper and two other Albanian crewmen.
One night, when the boat was due to sail from Valona with a cargo of
used automobile tires for Santi Quaronta, Thanasis Nikolas told his skipper and
the two crewmen that he had been to a wedding of a relative and had brought
back some foodstuffs and a quantity of wine. He invited them to enjoy the
feast with him. Just before the boat was scheduled to depart, the four men
sat on the deck to enjoy the treat. Wine flowed freely. The skipper remarked
casually on its peculiar odor, but was told by Thanasis that it was customary, ?
in his district to put perfume in wine at weddings.
In reality the wine was drugged. By midnight the skipper and the
two soldiers were fast asleep. Thanasis put a red light on top of the boat's
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ESCAPE FROM COMMUNIST ALBANIA
mast -- a signal to his brother, Christo, who was hiding near the dock, that
all was clear. Christo swam silently to the boat, holding his clothes over
his head. Thanasis then started the engine and glided out of the harbor un-
molested by the harbor police, Who knew the boat was due to sail that night.
Dawn found them on a southward course to Corfu. The skipper awoke
from his drugged sleep and begged to be put ashore on the Albanian coast.
Since that would have Meant immediate capture by Albanian guards, the request
was:refused. Shortly afterwards, they reached Corfu and freedom.
Other escapes were more dangerous, both as a result of the number
of persons concerned and the circumstances. The escape of the Filis family
was endangered by the presence of a tiny, child, Whose cries could easily alert
the border guards. This family, consisting of nine women and children and a
twelve-year-old crippled boy, crossed the Albanian-Greek border in March 1954
under the leadership of 65-year-old Mrs. Vasiliki Fili.
In the early part of March, when snow lies thick on the high mountains
on both sides of the border, this scantily-clad group started their journey
in the middle of the night. They not only had to avoid the Albanian border
patrol, but also the wolveal and bears made vicious by cold and hunger.
Added to these dangers was a constant fear that the small child
might cry and so betray the group's presence to the Communist border guards.
Fully aware of this danger, Mrs. Fili did not hesitate when the child began to
whimper; she ordered that a piece of cloth be put in the child's mouth to stifle
its 'cries, despite her own fears that this might cause suffocation.
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ESCAPE FROM COMMUNIST ALBANIA
In March 1959, after completing an extensive study of the European
refugee situation, the Zellerbach Commission reported that "During the course
of 1958, refugees continued to enter Greece from her Communist neighbors to
the north (both Albania and Bulgaria) at the rate of some 30 or 40 per month.
It is noteworthy that, while the average age of the escapee arriving in Greece
during 1947 to 1958 was thirty years, today the average age is twenty-five
years. It is also significant that the escapees arriving today are generally
in much poorer health than were the escapees five or ten years ago, and many
of them require considerable medical and dental attention."
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I FLEW A GLIDER OUT OF COMMUNIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA
By Jiri Kinski
,414+04' ( On a Sunday in May 1959, a two-seated
glider landed almost unobserved at Vienna's Schwechat
airport. Slowly, a young man climbed out of the seat.
Exhaustion and relief were written on his face.
The following days Austrian newspapers reported that he
was a 29-year-old building surveyor, Jiri Kinskil who
had flown his glider out of Communist Czechoslovakia and
asked for political asylum. He told Austrian police that
he did not want to put his services at the disposal of a
government he detested. ?
Kinskils daring flight in a motorless craft dependent on
wind currents is only one of the many methods that have
been used to escape Communist rule. This is Kinskiis
own story.)
Although my flight to freedom from Communist Czechoslovakia seems
a spur-of-the-moment thing, in reality I had planned it years in advance.
I hive always liked to live dangerously -- perhaps that is one of the reasons
I wanted to become a pilot. Although I was ready to take risks to reach
Austria, I tried to reckon with every conceivable possibility. But in the
end only sheer luck saved me and helped MB to reach Vienna.
I used to live in Brno, in the center of Czechoslovakia, where I
belonged to the local gliding association. One Sunday in May of this year I
was allowed to take part in a glider training flight in Bratislava, which I
knew was very near the Austrian border.
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.. I FIAT A GLIDER OUT OF COMMUNIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA
After the take-off I immediately felt how strong the wind from Austria
was blowing. First, I scanned the horizon to make sure there were no military
planes about. Then I went into a steep glide toward the March River, which is
the border between Czechoslovakia and Austria. Suddenly, a strong gust pushed
my plane northward, away from the border. I struggled and maneuvered in vain:
I simply could not get into position to cross the bordar area.
For four hours I circled over the frontier, filled with a growing
fear that I might have aroused suspicion and would be forced to land again on
Czech territory. 'I was beginning to give up hope. At last a strong blast of
west wind took me high enough for a ]Ong glide to the Schwechat airport in
Vienna.
As I said before, I had been planning this flight for a long time.
After I finished my regular term in the Army, a friend of my father's helped
me to enter the Air Academy.
I had never liked the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia, which had
been in power sinoe I was 15. But I knew it was necessary, if you wanted to
get along, to show enthusiasm for "socialism" (comnuniam). After the first
year, I was the third best in our class. I knew, of course, that every squad
in our class contained at least one Communist Party "activist" who kept an
eye on us. We jokingly called these people "the amateurs." And then there
were the real secret police officials. They checked on what the regime called
"wrong thoughts" or spoke up at our regular"tutualcriticism meetings" to
accuse people of "incolrect behaviour."
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I Fall A GLIDE.a OUT OF COMMUNIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA
On top of this, the personnel officer, or cadre chief, had charge
of everyone's personal file. These files, although never seen by us,
contained data about our "political reliability." Two or three times
we had to supply a great many facts about ourselves, our families and
the jobs they held and their political viewpoints and class-standing.
obviously,
a year
friends,
The
personnel officer could always call us up for a private talk about this
information, about any change from previous answers or about anything we may
have been reported as saying and that might be construed as "bourgeois" or
"reactionary."
As a result of all this, of course, we had a constant feeling of being
watched. Unfortunately, I forgot this feeling on one occassion. This sealed
my fate at the Academy.
I had a good friend in the same class. We used to go out together.
Sometimes we joked about our classmates or some of our superiors. One day we
were reading our aviation magazine which, for the first time, contained some
pictures of American-made jet fighters. The paper compared them - naturally
in an unfavourable light - to Soviet jet planes. I remarked that the Soviet
planes were certainly better but that the American ones somehow looked nicer.
That was all that I said; I did not say anything against the government or
ridicule Soviet aviation.
The next day I was called to see the personnel officer. I was reported
.to have said that Soviet planes were obsolete and American jets were better.
Then be went on to quote -- in a much sharper form than they were originally
said -- all my mocking remarks of the last months.
11h
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I Faw A GLIDER OUT t ? ): 'Jim) e tr,i.;Git)SIDVAKIA
"You are irresponsible, infected by alien influences, you have
sided with American imperialism, you have no place in our Academy," be
concluded. I was not given a chance to defend myself. The classmate I had
believed to be my friend was in fact a stool-pigeon who had been ordered to
spy on me. One hour later an extraordinary meeting of the class was convened.
The director of the school himself informed my schoolmates of the reasons
why I was being expelled from the school.
This took place in 1954. Before Stalin's death, for the same
offense I would have been immediately arrested and taken to Pankrac, the
investigating prison in Prague. But considering my age and unblemished past,
I was given a chance to recognize the "correct" line and to better myself.
I want to work in a large manufacturing plant in Brno which produced
factory equipment for export, mainly for Middle East countries. I worked first
as an unskilled worker and earned 650 crowns a month. Considering that I had
to support my old father -- my mother had died long ago --,the regime's much-
publicized "economic boom" passed me by. My salary waslow evens byour standards,
although hundreds of thousands had the same wage.
What can you do with 650 crowns? You pay little for rent, it is
true. Books are cheap and plentiful. There are many inexpensive concerts.
But what if you have to support two people with this sum of 650 crowns? A
modest meal in a restaurant costs 20 crowns, a liter of average wine 20 to 25
crowns, a pound of sausages 15, sugar five crowns. Coffee, at 80 crowns a
pound, or a pound of cocoa costing 27 crowns, are luxuries which many people
simply cannot afford. You must save for months and months to buy a good shirt.
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I FLEW. A GLIDER OUT 0 COMMUNIST CZECHOSLOVAKIA
You buy one for 65 crowns, but it goes to pieces very quickly and a better
one cannot be had for less than 80 to 100 crowns. A ready-made suit of good
material costs 1000 to 1200 crowns. An underpaid worker like myself could
earn enough to buy one suit in two months -- if be did not also have to buy
foods Such was our boom!
There are not many who can get by with their monthly. wages. A
white-collar worker with an income of 1,200 crowns, but with three children
to support, would be in about the same financial situation I was. To be sure,
a sizable group, which includes selected Party workers, or film people, or
high officials, or even quite a few peasants who have not yet been forced into
the collective farms, lives quite well. They can afford to buy a Czech
Skoda-Spartak car for 27,000 crowns. But the average worker cannot even dream
of buying a car.
About two years ago my pay was raised to 800 crowns. My father had died,
and I had to take care only of myself. After that, I began to live somewhat
more comfortably. I was even admitted to the gliding club in Brno.
But my personal file or, to put it better, my former personnel officer's
word, was still guiding my fate. Since my expulsion from the Air Academy, I
had been a "patriotic and vigilant" citizen. I had worked overtime, often
without pay. But all my efforts had been of no avail.
As an unreliable element I could not get a job as a pilot. I could
not qualify for a passport or a good job. Why didn't I go to another town?
In every factory and school, in every workshop and on every street you find the
same figures: the constant watchers -- both "amateurs" and "professionals."
There was no escape from the regime's agents.
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I FLEW A GLIDER-OUT 010 C CZECHOSIOVAKIA
The living standard had improved a bit, it is true, but life was
still drab, boring, and over-regulated. For me it was filled with a nerve-
racking concern: when would I be denounced once again?
There had been no weakening of the constant control by the regime
no relaxation of the permanent tension. Not a meek passed without a political
trial in Prague, Brno or elsewhere. And always, according to the Communist
regime, new "spies" and "parasites" were being unmasked.
Recently, a childhood friend of mine, a talented actor in Pilsen,
VAS sentenced to three years imprisonment. His crime? He was said to have
hated the Communist regime, been revolted by socialist (that is, Communist)
realism and to have ridiculed some of his colleagues who happened to be
members of the Communist Party.
We used to get together fairly. regularly. When I heard of his trial,
I felt a chill. It was then that I made my decision. I bad to leave my
country -- and the sooner the better.
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WHY I LEFT RUMANIA
By Vasile Berkovic
(Vasile Berkovic is neither a hero,
nor a coward. He is just one of the many thousands
who have known bleakness and fear for too long, who
are sick of the past and worried about the future.
Vasile Berkovic is a refugee who left his native
Rumania a few months ago. Here is his awn story.)
I was a bookkeeper, as was my father. My parents left me a little
house in Roman. That is the place where we all lived, in Moldava province,
not far from Jassy.
Till 1955, I had not even dreamed of leaving my hometown, my house,
my relatives, everything. I had a regular job as bookkeeper in a cooperative
which produced building materials. My salary-was 980 lei per month. This was
quite good pay,
three children.
year for a coat
enough to live on, to feed my family: my wife, Ana and the
We managed to clothe ourselves even though we had to save all
or a good suit. A man's suit of cheap cloth costs about 700
lei, a pair of bad quality shoes 400 lei, and they wear out very quickly. Still,
we knew that most people earned less and even a physician could not earn more
than 1000 lei.
Suddenly, it was in September 1955) 15 employees were sacked over-
night, including me. Special commissions purged all the cooperatives, firms,
and offices in Roman. Hundreds of so-called "unreliable elements," former
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ella I LEFT RUMANIA
merchants or vine-dealers, were dismissed. Nothing like that ever happened
before in our town.
We had a little money at home, but it could hardly have stretched
out for more than a few weeks. I was not so young any more; at 48 I had
lost most of my former zest and energy. Even if we had wanted to, we could
not have left Roman, since it was forbidden to change one's residence.
Through friends, bit by bit I built up a shaky existence again. I worked
for five or six firms as a part-time bookkeeper. I scraped together 500 lei
monthly. We had to cut our expenses.
This went on for one year. Then one of these firms offered me a
permanent job with a salary of 600 lei. Four months later the government
ordered a thorough reorganization of the state and commercial apparatus.
Once again I lost my job.
We -- Ana and I -- talked over the situation. We did not care for
politics; all that kind of talk -- meetings and speeches. Who really cares,
except for a handful of them? We had to think of getting money for food.
It took all a man's time.
Next I worked as a bookkeeper, first at one building site, then
another. I worked harder and lived worse than ever before. I received 400
lei monthly and had to feed a family of five. One hundred lei a week vhen
one pound of fat cost 10 lei, sugar seven lei, the cheapest meat 10 lei.
My wife had to stand in long queues. We did not have enough money,
we could not afford black market prices. She stood in line hour after hour,
searching for bargains in clothing and food. She was ill, she had circula-
tory trouble and she had to stand one hour here, two hours there hour after
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WHY I LEFT RUMANIA
The veues take the heart out of you. Sales people simply do not care.
Nobody cares. Why should they care? They earned just as little as I did.
This dreary struggle of daily life wears out everybody. Just getting
to the butcher's counter takes hours and then you cannot get what you want.
Rumania once was a gay country. But now? Everybody is impatient
and grim. But who can blame them? So many irritations, and the people are
tired, terribly tired.
Still, if I think of the fate of my brother-in-law, I must say that
on the whole we have been more fortunate. He was a merchant before the
Communist take-over. Then he went to work in a shop. Last summer he was
denounced, possibly by a neighbour, because "he lives luxuriously." What was
his crime? Be bought, after one year of saving, two ready-made new suits on
the same day. He was arrested and the secret police found three gold rings
in his home. The rings were left to him by his parents. He is now in a
concentration camp, near Doftana. He can write twice a year to his family.
His wife is working now in the oil fields at Ploesti, earns 500 lei and takes
care of her two daughters on that.
Despite all this, it was a hard decision to leave Roman. My parents
and grand-parents are buried there. I hardly knew any other city. I had not
even been to Bucharest once. But my wife and I felt that we had to go for the
sake, for the future of our three children.
Ours is not a special case, but rather a typical one. Hundreds of
thousands would like to follow in our footsteps.
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INTEGRATED REFUGEES
NOM Above 1,000,000
& 500,000 to 999.999
EWYM Below 500,000
UNION OF SOVIET
SOCIALIST REPUBLICS
TOTAL UNRESOLVED
REFUGEE CASES
V Over 300,000
X 100,000 to 299,999
25,000 to 99,999
11111111111 1,000 to 24,999
Below 1,000
REFUGEES UNDER
MANDATE OF UNHCR
? Over 100,000
* 50,000 to 100,000
1,000 to 50,000
? Below 1,000
-"." ?.? ? v?r.,,.; 4 . ,
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PART 11
THE RESULTS
"It is dangerous for anyone to generalize as to the consequences to
society of the refugee problem... There must be definite consequences of
a wholly negative character in the countries of origin although, for
obvious reasons, we know all too little of the facts. The denudation of
the countryside and farmlands, the tale of deserted villages and the
failure to recolonize, the loss of manpower with traditional skills are
factors known to be operating against the achievement of economic sta-
bility in Poland, Czechoslovakia and East Germany. It is estimated that
the fiungarian exodus lost that country the equivalent of two years natural
increase...
"The same story holds, in other countries of origin, in the realm of
intellectual wealth. The deliberate attempt to exterminate the intellec-
tual and liberal leadership in the Baltic states resulted in almost all
the survivors of that group becoming refugees."
? El fan Rees, Centunt of the Home l ess
Man, publ i shed by fhT Carne9i e Endoment
for International Peace, united Nations
PI aza at 46th Street, New York, N.Y.
...?1???10.1111,
???
?fl.
WHY THEY FLED: A NEW ANALYSIS OF SOME OF THE 200,000 HUNGARIAN REFUGEES
By Dr. Lawrence E. Hinkle, Jr.
Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine,
Cornell University Medical College, New York
(Dr. Hinkle is also Executive Director
of the Human Ecology Study Program of New York Hospital-
Cornell Medical Center in New York City. The Ecology
Group scientifically studies the mutual relations between
men and their environments. Dr. Hinkle's raport was
part of an investigation of Hungarian refugees made by .
a team of nearly 30 scientists, including physicians,
psychiatrists, sociologists, psychologists and cultural
anthropoligists. The study revealed that Communist
attempts to indoctrinate young people, students and
workers through propaganda, education and other measures,
have been "singularly ineffective" in eradicating anti-
Communist feelings among Hungarians.)
In recent years those engaged in the Human Ecology Study Program
at Cornell University have investigated the relation between health, behavior,
life experiences, and the social environment, in more than three thousand
people, including refugees from the Hungarian freedom uprising of 1956.
A total of 69 Hungarian refugees have been interviewed, examined,
and observed at the research facilities of the Human Ecology Study Program
in New York. The group of informants was carefully chosen to include students,
scientists, members of professions, intellectuals, skilled and semi-skilled
workers, and adolescents, whose motives and behavior were of special interest
because of the leading role that such people had taken in the Revolution of
1956. Only a few farmer landowners and members of the old middle class were
included. Some of those studied had held positions of trust and responsibility
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WHY THEY FLED: A NEW ANALYSIS OF SOME OF THE 200,000 HUNGARIAN REFUGEES -'
in the Hungarian Communist State, and had been favored members of the society.
Many of them had been acceptable to the Communist Party, and had been assoc-
iated with its ancillary activities, although they were not actually Party
members.
To include data from former Party members as well, some of the staff
of the Study Program vent to Great Britain where they tested, interviewed,
and examined seven additional refugees who had been active Communists-- some
of whom considered themselves still to be so.
Although the goal of the investigation was to determine, as far as
possible, the factors that had had an important influence upon the behavior
and health of these Hungarians, much effort was focused upon an attempt to
determine why these people fought and fled. The observations give no support
to the idea that the revolution and the subsequent exodus of some 200,000
Hungarians were simply the result of the unpremeditated action of people swept
up in a wave of mass emotion.
On the contrary, they indicate that those who participated in these
events had long-term, deep-seated, realistic, and highly personal motives for
their actions. This was true of nearly everyone studied, regardless of his
background or behavior; it was such a regular observation among the students,
adolescents, workers, teachers, scientists, and professional people, that
there is very good reason to believe it is true of the refugee group in
general.
Their motives fell into two general categories. The first of these
:was a long-term and insurmountable feeling of personal insecurity-- an
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WHY THEY FL): A NEW ANALYSIS OF SOME OF ME 200,000 HUNGARIAN REFUGEES di..
implicit belief that "no matter mtat I do, or how high a position I may attain,
I and my family may be ruined at any time by the actions of others, or by events
beyond my control." The second was a profound sense of frustration - a deep-
seated conviction that "in Communist Hungary there is no way that I can live
out my life as I want to, and in a manner that satisfies my needs."
The motives of the individual refugees were not based upon
irrational and generally shared prejudice, upon unformulated fear, or upon
abstract polltical or religious convictions; they were based upon personal expe-
rience with confiscation, denunciation, arrest, imprisonment, and the denial of
jobs, housing, and education. Such motives were as strong in those who had been
ostensibly favored by the Communist regime as they were in those who had been
officially designated as "class aliens".
None of the informants
not even those in a position to be well-
informed -- had expected the freedom revolution to occur when it did. No
group had planned it. The great majority of the informants had not been aware
that many other Hungarians felt as strongly as they did. Yet all of them had
been aware of their awn intense dissatisfaction for many years past, and a
very significant proportion of them had privately decided, long previously,
that they would flee from the country, or take part in rebellion, at the first
opportunity. In this they were supported by their families -- even by family
members who knew that they would be left behind. Thus the fight and flight
of an individual might have been sudden, but his behavior was not unrealistic,
and not entirely unpremeditated.
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WHY THEY FLED: A MI ANALYSIS OF SOME OF THE 200,000 HUNGARIAN REFUGEES -
Economic deprivation was a poor determinant of behavior. Some of
those who participated most vigorously in the revolt were people who were
economically better off than they might have been under the old regime, and
knew it; others, including members of the old middle class and former landowners,
who had been reduced to abject poverty, took no part in the fighting, but
simply fled. The group as a whole were relatively little concerned about the
economic organization of the society. Their resentments were focueeo upon
its "police state" aspects -- its arbitrariness, its restrictions, its brutal-
ity, and its unpredictability.
Only a minority of our informants had participated in the actual
fighting, although all had sympathized with the revolution and many had sup-
ported it tacitly or by ancillary activities.
The group as a whole displayed a deep-seated hostility toward Russians.
This had been strongly reinforced by Soviet behavior during the past fifteen
years ?oviet troops have been in Hungary since the end of World War 0; but
there was much evidence that anti-Russian attitudes existed in their parents
before World War II, and that the younger generation had derived their awn
attitudes primarily from those of their parents.
The refugees had a similar deep-seated hostility toward the people who
made up the central Communist Government group, and toward many of the local
functionaries and hangers-on. Attempts by the Communists to indoctrinate young
people, students, and workers by means of propaganda, education, and other
activities had been singularly ineffective in eradicating such attitudes.
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WHY THEY FLED: A NEW ANALYSIS OF SOME OF THE 200,000 HUNGARIAN REFUGEES -
Even favored young members of the Communist Party -- students and
intellectuals who were relatives of prominent Communists, who had grown up
in the Party, and who had no real memory of life as it was before 1947 -- were
disillusioned and bitterly opposed to the Communist system. These citizens
of a police state had learned to form their beliefs and attitudes from what
they saw and knew, rather than from what they heard or read. They regarded
some socialist economic reforms as desirable, but for communism and Communists
they had only contempt and hostility.
The effect that our informants' experiences during the past fifteen
years have had upon their health was also of interest to us. A majority of
these people had experienced an increased number of episodes of all varieties
of illness during periods when they were having difficulty in making a
satisfactory adaptation to their social environment, and most notably during
periods when they felt insecure, frustrated, and threatened because of their
position in the Communist society.
This increase in illness appeared to be largely the result of
physiological and psychological changes associated with attempts to adapt to
an extremely difficult life situation, rather than being simply the result of
fatigue, injury, poor diet, or other physical aspects of the environment.
We have not previously encountered a group of people in wham such
a profound degree of insecurity and frustration had been induced by the social
environment in which they lived. It is evident that the Hungarian Communists
were far from creating a welfare state in which everyone was socially secure
and without conflict or care -- quite the contrary: they had created a society
so rigid, arbitrary, unpredictable, danger-laden, and beyond the control of
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WRYTHEYTLED: A NEW ANALYSIS OF SC ME OF THE 200,000 HUNGARIAN REFUGEES
the individual, that a great proportion of the citizens, including sane of
the Communists themselves, were ready to takeany desperate measure necessary
to destroy it or escape from it.
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WHAT THE LOSS OF REFUGEES DOES TO A COMMUNIST COUNTRY
(Excerpts from a Report by the Population Reference Bureau, Inc.)
--:f?trt (The Population Reference Bureau was
founded in 1929 in Washington, D. C., as a nonprofit,
scientific, educational organization for the purpose
of gathering, correlating and distributing papulation
data.)
Communist East Germany is rapidly becoming an aging, economic
desert in contrast to youthful, prosperous West Germany.
As a direct result of dramatic population changes, Germany
now has the oldest work force and next to the lowest birth rate in Europe.
Since the end of World War II, more than 3,500,000 East Germans have fled
to the free German Federal Republic.
West Germany (including West Berlin), with an estimated present
population of 53.7 million -- almost three times East Germany's population
of 17.4 million -- now ranks as the most populous country in western Europe.
These are some of the important factors in East Germany's decline
and West Germany's resurgence:
The vast flow of able-bodied population from East to West continues
without let-up. Each day a large village in effect "moves" westward across
the border between the two Germanys. For the last five years, refugees have
been coming over at the rate of almost a quarter million a year. Significantly,
most are young people of working age -- a fact that spells serious economic
trouble for East Germany...
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WHAT THE LOSS OF REFUGEES DOES TO A COMMUNIST COUNTRY
In addition to East German refugees, West Germany's population now
includes millions of Germans and persons of German descent who at the end of
the war were driven out of the Eastern European satellites and former German
territory presently under Polish rule. By 1950, eight million had arrived at
West German borders.
Historically, the Soviet-occupied portion of Germany (now the "German
Democratic Republic"), embracing 41,478 square miles, was primarily agricultural.
The big industrial complexes like the Ruhr were within the 94,719 square miles
of the Allied-occupied zones, now the German Federal Republic.
In 1950, the last year for which reliable figures are available, the
median age of workers in the Soviet zone was 42 for men and 36 for women. In
addition, women comprised 42 percent of its industrial workers.
Figures released recently by the West German Government show that in
the years 1952-1958, 50.3 percent of the refugees from East Germany were under
25 years of age and another 27.8 percent between the ages of 25 and 45.
Short of a sharp reversal in the trend of her birth rate -- and there
seems no likelihood of that in the near future, East Germany cannot hope for
births to redress her migration losses, currently more than three times the
natural increase (births over deaths) of her population.
Because of the continuing migration of young people, and in contrast
to a slowly rising birth rate in West Germany, the East German birth rate is
slipping steadily lower. From 16.9 in 1951, it fell to 16.3 in 1955, to 15.9
in 1956, and to 15.6 in 1957 -- the last year for which figures are available.
West Germany's birth rate climbed from 16.5 in 1950 to an even 17.0 in 1937.
130
cella !zed CoDy AiDiDrov
for Rel
WHAT THE LOSS OF REFUGEES DOES TO A COMMUNIST COUNTRY
Unless this steady drain of population, especially as it affects
younger people, is arrested in some way, East Germany will have fewer and
fewer men to operate her factories and farms, more and more women joining
her labor force and a mounting dependency ratio, with the East Germani
economy having to provide for an ever higher proportion of non-productive
citizens.
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0- ." .4 ? "0.
/N.
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THE SOVIET REDEFECTION CAMPAIGN: ITS SUCCESSES AND FAILURES
(Excerpts from the Zellerbach Commission's report, "Refugees in Europe")
t4OIRO*,ir4104rt The Zellerbach Commission was created by
the International Rescue Committee in late 1957 to survey
the condition of the refugees in Europe. The seven mem-
bers of the Commission visited through the main centers
of refugee settlement in the fall of 1957 and composed
their first report in the spring of 1958. A supplemen-
tary report updating the first one was issued on March 15,
Ig904eWl
In early 1955 the Soviet Union and its satellite nations simultane-
- ?
ously embarked on a redefection campaign of international scope. Amnesty de-
crees were passed, assuring all the refugees who had fled their countries that
they would suffer no penalty on their return.
In virtually every city of Western Europe and the Western hemisphere
whore Iron Curtain refugees had settled in substantial number, the redefection
campaign, lavishly financed and supported by a network of agents and informers
became an instrument of fear in refugee circles. Russians, Poles, Hungarians
and others who had left their countries many years previously and had begun to
feel confident that the Communists knew nothing of their whereabouts and cir-
cumstances, suddenly began to receive letters, newspapers and circulars, sent
to them at their current address.
The literature and letters were supplemented by radio broadcasts in
every refugee language, appealing to the refugees on patriotic grounds to return
home. Finally, there were personal visits from Soviet agents, who employed
techniques ranging all the way from saccharine suasion to outright kidnapping.
1.32
ifrt"agoit:At ,1/4.,',.-'7ilirlq6OVIET-11112FEC-1110N CAMPAIGN: "ITS SU@GESSES AND ITS FAILURES
The reason for the redefection campaign was obvious. Every refugee
who was successfully settled abroad was a living argument against Communism;
every refugee who redefected to his homeland after experience in the free world
becomes a living argument in the service of the Communist lie.
At first, the campaign had some sensational success. It was par-
ticularly easy to appeal to the refugees who were broken and embittered (by
the readjustment difficulties they had encountered). At the height of the
campaign, several very large groups of Iron Curtain refugees returned from
Latin America to their Communist-dominated homelands. Of course, there was a
tremendous fanfare on the subject by Communist propaganda.
The redefection propaganda campaign, although it still persists, has
been tapering off. The reason for this tapering off, it can be safely assumed,
has been the diminishing rate of return. Those who were weak or broken and
psychologically prepared to succumb, succumbed during the early months of the
campaign. The overwhelming majority, however, were not prepared to surrender
their freedom despite the economic difficulties under which many of them were
living.
At the present time, the redefection campaign publishes three news-
papers in Russian and several in the satellite languages. These are regularly
dispatched to a great number of refugees in Western Europe. Apparently, however,
the refugees with the exception of the Hungarians
CA 110
are receiving far fewer
letters from near relatives urging them to return.
Other techniques still employed include personal visits to refugees
at their homes, or meetings with them while they are attending conferences,
congresses, etc., in free world countries. In France, the consulates regularly
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THE SOVIET REDEFECTIAMONIGNV'MU"SUCCSgSESAAND IF
'L
attempt to entice the refugees with cultural programs in their own language.
These are often well attended, because in many cases they are the only events
of their kind to which the refugee has access.
However, the rosy descriptions of life behind the Iron Curtain, which
are fed to the refugees in the course of these cultural programs, are counter-
acted in part by private letters which they receive from their homeland. "I
am working like a slave," a Czechoslovak refugee who returned in 1956 wrote
to a friend in Paris. "I found no room and prices are so high that I must work
12 hours a day and even Sundays to earn the bare mihimgm, I could kick myself
when I think of my life in Paris. Now I am living here like a dog without hope
or future.
The redefection campaign is most active among the Russian refugees.
The activities of the Soviet agents charged with winning the refugees back are
centralized through the "Committee for Return to the Homeland", which has its
headquarters at Schadowstrasse 18 in the Soviet sector of Berlin. The committee
has a radio station and it broadcasts in Russian, Ukrainian, Ruthenian and the
other regional languages of the USSR. It has
Berltn, where redefectors are lodged prior to
mittee for the Return to the Homeland has its
special reception centers in East
their return to Russia. The Com-
agents at every point where there
is a concentration of Russian refugees. These agents distribute literature and
pamphlets, spread news and rumors and pay personal visits to those refugees who
Show signs of being psychologically prepared. In some cases, also, the Soviet
embassies play a direct role in enticing redefectors and assisting redefection
agents.
o.4,-ttrItt titsT.p.rol;;;-: 't2
;
4+ 1 ????? ?
? ? ; ? ..^ ; 11.'
to 3.11f,.. ?
V/.
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THE SOVIET REDEFECTION CAMPAIGN: ITS SUCCESSES AND ITS FAILURES
Most of the Russian redefectors came from Argentina and other Latin
American countries. In France, a certain number of old White Russian immigrants
decided to return. From Western Germany, where the activities of the Berlin
committee are most energetic, the number of redefectors returning to Russia
recently has amounted to only five or six a month.
Among the redefectors, it goes without saying, there is always a
certain number of Communist agents, who are recalled home after having com-
pleted longer or shorter assignments in the West. The Communist propaganda
machine makes great use of such cases to demonstrate that "the refugees are
returning home" -- and the Communist agents, posing as once-genuine refugees
who had been disillusioned by their experience with the West, deliver eloquent
tirades over the Commnnist radio.
The redefection campaign has also been active among the Hungarian
refugees. Official figures list more than 5,400 repatriations from Austria,
2,700 from Yugoslavia, and 2,200 from other countries. The actual numbers
are undoubtedly higher. The Hungarian Communist regime has been making par-
ticularly strenuous efforts to promote the repatriation of the young people
who escaped without their parents. The Communist regime in Budapest has left
no stone unturned in attempting to repatriate the teen-age refugees. Their
representations to the western governments and to the United Nations have had
little effect, however. Thum far the free world countries have refused to
return Hungarian minors unless it was their clearly expressed desire to go home.
Much more serious are the letters which the youthful refugees fre-
quently receive from their parents imploring them to come home and assuring
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THE SaVIET RECTION CAMPAIGN: ITS SUCCESSES AND ITS FAILURES
them, that they will not be punished for their defection.. More frequently than
not, however, the first letter is followed by?a second letter in which, either
openly or in coded language, the parents let their children know that the first
letter was written under pressure and that they really-wish them to remain in
the Walt.
136
WHAT HAPPENS TO BERMS WHO GO HOME
(From a Report by the International League for the Rights of Man)
The Communist regime in Hungary has imprisoned, exiled or executed
6,000 refugees who fled their homeland following Soviet suppression of the
1956 freedom revolt but later returned after being assured that they would
not be harmed.
In addition, many others have suffered through official discrim-
ination against relatives and friends of the refugees who returned to Hungary.
This persecution:, violates the pledges made by Hungarian authorities
to respect the rights of Hungarian refugees who accepted the declaration of
amnesty and returned to their country.
These three points were among the conclusions in a report recently
given to the United Nations by the International League for the Rights of
Man, a consultative agency accredited to the UN. The evidence was based on
certified statements and testimony obtained from Hungarian refugees in Vienna
by the Hungarian National Revolutionary Committee in Exile.
The Documentation Service of the Hungarian Committee submitted
the following general statement concerning the fate of Hungarian refugees
who returned to Hungary:
"The puppet government of Hungary published some time ago data
claiming that 31:000 refugees out of the 200,000 who fled to the West have
returned. The true figure, however, of those who have returned, is approximately
4,15.?
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WHAT HAPPENS TO REFUGEES WHO GO HOME
21,000. The statisticians of the Hungarian Ministry of the Interior include,
for purposes of propaganda, in the number of those who came back 'voluntarily',
those who have in one way or another tried to escape to the West but were
either physically stopped by the Hungarian authorities or were talked out
of it by them. Naturally, many of those who did not succeed in escaping
have been interned in camps or imprisoned.
"Out of the 21,000 people who have returned to Hungary, approximately
6,000 were arrested and are either in prison or in internment camps. In the
Internment camps of Kistarcsa and Recsk, the so-called "Westerners'. are in
Isolated barracks and guarded by especially reliable police. Others ended
up in prison because when they were brought before the Tribunals with the
accusation of having spied for the West or of participation in the Revolu-
tion, the judgment handed down considered the fact of their having fled to
the West as an aggravating circumstance.
"All those who have returned and are presently in prison or intern-
ment camps had received previously at the Hungarian Legations of the countries
where they were then living a 'letter of amnesty' promising them complete
forgiveness. This letter, however, did not have any meaning once they arrived
In Hungary.
"By and large, the fate of the overwhelming majority of those who
return is the following: For two or three weeks they can live undisturbed
at their home. In some cases, they are even reinstated in their former jobs
or can find new ones. After about two or three weeks, they are summoned to
appear before the police, which in the case of those living in Budapest is on
the third floor of Beak Ferenc Place Police station. The interrogating police
]35
?,1
WHAT HAPPENS TO REFUGEES WHO GO HOME
officer first of all reminds the returned refugee that he must be grateful
to the People's Republic, which allowed his return in spite of his grave
mistake!
"After this, the police officer in a much stricter tone informs
the person that he is in trouble because it has been discovered that he did
not reveal some of his grave misdeeds when he petitioned the Legation to
return home and thus he obtained amnesty under false pretences. The confused
and frightened person is then informed by the police officer that he might
avoid punishment and might be allowed to go free if he enters the service
of the security organs and signs a statement to that effect. In case he is
not willing to do so, he is taken directly to prison or to an internment
"There are many among those who return to Hungary who did not get
to their home at all and whose fate is completely unknown from the moment
they crossed the Hungarian border. These were sent directly to prison or
Internment camps and according to certain well documented information some
of them were sent to the Soviet Union.
"Here are a few cases in point:
"Shortly before Christmas, 1957, two brothers, both students, Janos
and Karoly Nagy, 22 and 19 years respectively, returned from France. Their
letter of amnesty was made out by the Hungarian Legation in Vienna. The two
brothers informed their parents of the time of their arrival home. They
never got home and their fate since the time they crossed the Hungarian border
is unknown.
"Miklos Veto, a 42-year-old shopkeeper, returned in December 1957,
with a letter of amnesty from Vienna to his home in Szeged. The reason for
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WHAT HAPPENS TO REFUGEES WHO GO HOME
his return was that his wife and son, who had. remained in Hungary, did not
receive exit visas. Under the Nazi regime, Mr. Veto spent two years in
Auschwitz. Approximately two weeks after his return to Szeged, he was sum-
moned to the police station. There, he was beaten until unconscious and
then interned for an indefinite time.
"Istvan Korponai, a mechanic, returned 'ram Canada to his wife at
Feherigarmat. The letter of amnesty was written by the Hungarian Legation
in ,Montreal. Mr. Korponai spent four days altogether in his home after
his return in November. After four days, he was taken away during the night
and his
work on
lage as
family was later informed that he was sent to the Soviet Union to
a technical project. His wife was strongly advised to leave her vii-
she would only 'contaminate' the atmosphere and anyhow, would not
see her husband again. Since that time, the wife has been forced to work
under her maiden name in Budapest.
"Zoltan Petho0 a photographer by profession, received a statement
of amnesty from the Hungarian Legation in Vienna in June 1958. On his return
to Hnngary, he was immediately taken into custo4y at the border station,
Hegyeshalom, and sent to the Fo utca prison in Budapest. They questioned
him for six days, and a few days later he was taken to court. The Municipal
Court of Budapest sentenced rrim to death; eight days later the Supreme Court
approved the sentence. His petition for pardon was rejected. Zoltan Petho,
repatriated on a statement of impunity, was executed twenty six days after
his return.
"Istvan Bauer, a locksmith, returned to Hungary from West Germany,
carrying a written statement of eMnesty. Be passed the border station at
140
ArtAA".5',.
WHAT HAPPENS TO REFUGEES WHO GO HOME
Hegyeshalam in June 1958 but neNer reached his family midwife residing
in Miskolc.
"Two students, minors, asked for repatriation to return to their
parents living in Szikszo. When questioned at the Hungarian Legation in
Vienna, they admitted their activities during the insurrection. Despite
this confession, impunity was promised to them and they received a written
statement of amnesty. The parents received identical statements from the
authorities in Szikszo. They arrived in the middle of May 1958.. ,At,the
end of Juneil both were arrested and were never seen nor heard from again.
"The Hungarian Government reportedly keeps records of those re-
patriates who have technical skills or are experts. Most of them are trans-
ferred to the Soviet Union. The following is an example: A printing machine
constructor was expected to return to his family in Hungary. He never arrived
home. Two months later the family received a postcard from an unidentified
place in Russia saying that the .young man was working in his profession,
but nothing more.
"Another source revealed that a group of repatriated, skilled
laborers in metallurgy (heavy industry) had been transferred to industrial
centers in the Ukraine. After several months, the families received a stand-
ardized post card from them, eight lines of an identical text.
HA group of repatriated construction laborers was expected to return
to their families in the Trans-Tisza region. Because of their skill, they
were sent to an unknown part of the Soviet Union to construct drainage canals
anh irrigation projects. They disappeared and have never been heard from or
seen again.'
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WHAT HAPPENS TO REFUGEES WHO GO HOME
"Thus many repatriates from the West disappear without any trace.
It is almost impossible for those who return from the West to get a job or
an apartment. According to a confidential governmental decree, those re-
turning from the West cannot even be truck or taxi drivers. If they obtain
such employment, they must be dismissed immediately. They cannot have a
trade certificate, nor can they vote."
The Hungarian Committee also submitted to the International League
for the Rights of Mans which in tura submitted them to the United Nations, .
three detailed sworn statements concerning refugees who returned to Hungary,
The first -vas given by Janos Sarkany, a former automobile mechanic in Buda-
Pest, who has twice fled his Communist-controlled homeland. His statement
says:
"I escaped with my wife and two daughters in November 1956, after
the unhappy end of the Hungarian insurrection. We settled in Switzerland,
where I immediately obtained work and good housing. However, I was overcome
by nostalgia =dyes strongly aware of my language difficulties; but above
all, the agents of the Hungarian Legation were tempting me with Seductive
promises. I received written promises of amnesty; they promised me a good
job and the return of my family home and vineyard (half an acre). As a
result of the attraction of these promises, and also impelled by old remi-
niscences, we agreed to repatriation in August 1957.
"The first three weeks were quiet. I got a job and. was reinstalled
in my house and vineyard. A few weeks later I was called to the police.
I was examined and questioned, and they wanted to have information about me
and. my activities during my emigration. Because I could not furnish satis-
factory information, I was threatened.
142
?
WHAT HAPPENS TO REFUGEES WHO GO HOME
"I was called again to the police and threatened again, and it
seemed quite obvious that I had fallen into their net. I was suddenly dis-
missed from my job, and each time I tried to get other employment, I could
feel that my police record was following me. I covered the whole country
without any result. During this time, my family did not even have sufficient
food at home.
"The next step was that they took away my home and the vineyard.
My daughter was rejected from high school; as the daughter of a so-called
'Westerner', she was to have no opportunity to study.
"In the fall of 19580 the police of Szodbathely called ne once more
and the treatment was worse than ever. I then learned that a friend, a repa-
triated refugee like myself, had disappeared, together with his family. I
learned later that they had been interned in the camp at Toko/. After a few
weeks, this friend of mine was released, but his family remained interned.
When I met him, his face was covered with bruises and he told me that he had
been compelled to become an 'informer'.
"At the end of December, I was again called to the police and felt
that this was the end.
"On January 60 1959, we started for the border. At dawn we. cut
the wires with a wire cutter I had. My-wife, my youngest daughter, and I
passed safely through. my older daughter, however, stepped on a mine. I
carried my wounded, bleeding daughter on my back across the border to Austria.
Her leg had to be amputated in a hospital in Vienna."
Janos Sarkany is still in Austria. His 18-year-old daughter Klara
is still hospitalized there.
<
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WHAT HAPPENS TO REFUGEES WHO GO HOME
The second individual statement concerns a Hungarian refugee who
was less fortunate following his return to Communist Hungary. Istvan Lenz
escaped from Hungary in January 1957. After spending a short time in a
refugee csuip in Austria, he immigrated to West Germany and found employment
in his profession. His wife tried to follow him, but when she attempted to
dross the border, she was shot in her right arm and arrested. After three
months she was released but had lost the use of her right arm. Her letters
to Mt. Lenz were typed.
In 1958, the agents of the Hungarian Communist regime began to lure
Mt. Lenz back with promises. At the same time, the AVO secret
agents wanted his 56-year old father, Gyula Lenz, to write to the son to
return. Because he did not do so, the father was dismissed from his job.
Knowing that Istvan Lenz' wife was unable to use her Agiat arm, the Com-.
mmnist agents wrote, in her name, typewrittealsentimental letters calling
hin back to Hungary.
In Jay 1958, Istvan Lenz returned to Hunge.rywith.an amnesty letter
issued by the Hungarian Legation in West Germany. He spent four days in his
paternal home and then was arrested. A week later his father was also ar-
rested.. The mother was evicted from her apartment and had to seek refuge
with relatives.
In September 19580 Istvan Lenz was accused and tried for spying
for the "Western imperialists". His father was accused of participating in
his activities. Istvan Lenz was sentenced to death and presumably executed.
His father, Gyula Lenz, received a twelve-year prison sentence. In December
1958, Mts. Lenz received permission to send a parcel to her husband inprison,
144
WHAT HAPPENS TO REFUGEES WHO GO HOME
but was not permitted to visit him. She received no permission to send
anything to her son. This would confirm the rumor that he had been executed.
A third sworn statement was given to the League by Pal Solti, a
former member of the Hungarian Revolutionary Committee. He said:
"I escaped from Hungary in December 1956 with my cousin, Janos
Loos. Loos, then 20 years of age, had lived with his mother and step-
father in Budafok? Tancaics Ucca 7. He had been employed by the State Rail-
ways as an assistant fireman; meanwhile he was preparing for his examination
as an engine driver. At the time of the insurrection, I was 21 years old
and worked in the Majos I garment factory. Because I was an orphan, with
no home, I lived in the dormitory of the factory. Neither of us was a mem-
ber of the Communist Party, but we were obliged to join the DISZ (Communist
Youth Movement). My cousin, who was a good swimmer, had a slightly priv-
ileged position in it.
"We both fought actively with arms in the insurrection against the
Russians. In Austria we lived in a refugee camp until the summer of 1957
and we planned to immigrate to Australia. Because the immigration was con-
stantly postponed, we vent to work to support ourselves. Loos received a
job at a chicken farm near Vienna, I myself in Burgenland. Because of lack
of sufficient money, we were unable to visit each other, but we were in
correspondence 'with each other.
"In October 1957, the tone of his letters changed. He spoke about
unexpected difficulties; he had psychological problems; moreover his mother
had called him home. In November, I received a special delivery letter,
asking me to come to Vienna urgently. He told me that a man had contacted
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WHAT HAPPENS TO REFUGEES WHO GO HOME
him: who seemed to be a man of "good will" and had offered him a loan (4,500
Schillings) to enable him to buy a bicycle and some clothing. The man had
given him two years to repay the money. Now he was.threatening him with black-
mail. He would -ftmel Loos' obligation if the latter returned to Hungary,
because in that case, it would be considered as his reward. On the other
handl his mother urgel him to return: saying that his stepfather would lose
his job if he failed to do so. He had to make up his mind in two days.
uUnder this pressure, he decided on repatriation. He had hardly
passed the frontier when he was arrested, despite his amnesty papers. He
is now in an unknown prison. During the sixteen months which have passed
since that time, his mother has received only one brief postcard posted from
an unknown place."
1146
PART III
RESET11.EMENT
"'What is it you would like to have most in life?' asked the reporter.
"TA key,/ replied the refugee, 'a key to a door behind which I could
have some privacy for me and my family, a place I could really make my home.'"
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? from a United Nations broadcast originating
at Canp Hadjiki ri akion. Greece
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Ii
Hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, provided by the
free peoples of-the world for relief and reconstruction
In Korea, helped In the resettlement of the more than two
and a half million persons who fled from Communist con-
trol in North Korea. Here a refugee farm family pulls
weeds in the IKOK Village Seed Bed Projeet.
Many obstacles had to be overcome
before shoemaker Alexander Demenko,
who was born in Ostroschez, Russia,
could be resettled in his new shop
In the outskirts of Salzburg,
Austria.
The resettlement of nearly one million Vietnamese who In 1954 fled from the Communist Korth
to the Republic of (South) Vietnam is one of the most remarkable of all refugee stories.
Here at Xuan-Kinh, in the free south, more than 1,000 refugee fishermen (part of an entire
village which was Ir mith by the parish priest) launch their new fleet of 143 boats.
'at
BUILDING A NEW LIFE: THE RESETTLEMENT OF THE REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
By Mark Piros
PART I
One of the twentieth century's major sociological achievements,
although frequently overshadowed by the drama of individual escapes, has
been the resettlement of millions of refugees from communism in the years
since the end of World War II.
Governments, organizations and private citizens throughout the
free world have joined in a vast, cooperative effort to find new homes for
some twelve million of these men, women and children. Countless families
already have become adjusted to life in their adopted homelands. A ma-
jority of the refugee millions have been resettled.
The over-all exodus from Communist countries has been so over-
whelming, however, that a number of unresolved problems still exist. In
1959, for example, a permanent solution was yet to be found for some
145,000 persons remaining in "first asylum" countries such as Austria,
West Germany, Italy and Greece. Concern was also expressed for approx-
imately one million Chinese refugees crowded into Hong Kong.
A country-by-country survey reveals the scope of the post-war
refugee flow -- and the efforts which have been made to meet the challenges
it has created.
1119
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BUILDING A NEW LIFE: THE RESETTLEMENT OF THE REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
Soviet East Germany has Yost more citizens by flight than any
other Communist-ruled country.' More than 3,500,000 East Germans have fled
to the free German Federal Republic since 1945.
In West Berlin, where most of the East Germans cross, the refugee
is officially "recognized" and accepted if he can prove that his life would
have been in danger if he had stayed in the Soviet Zone, that he wants to
join a family member in West Germany, or that there is a job waiting for
him. If he is not "recognized" he can remain in West Germany -- he is
never compelled to return to the Soviet Zone -- but he does not get
official assistance in resettling. Many refugees go directly to friends
or relatives without seeking governmental aid.
Ten percent of the "recognized" refugees from the Soviet Zone
may remain in West Berlin, if they wish. The rest are flown out to West
Germany, given residence permits, permission to work (sometimes a pension),
the right to vote, and assistance in finding housing.
The German Federal Republic has assimilated most of the post-
World War II refugees from the Soviet Zone with comparatively little
trouble -- today job openings in West Germany exceed the number of un-
employed persons. The refugees, in turn, have contributed to making West
Germany the prosperous state it is.
In addition to the refugees who have come directly from the
Soviet Zone of Germany since the
also received and sheltered more
occupied areas, plus almost nine
end of World War II, West Germany has
than 200,000 escapees from other Soviet-
million ethnic Germans who have been
displaced from their homes for various reasons.
15o
---
L
1.?,11411-04t4*.'
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BUILDING A NEW LIFE: THE RESETTLEMENT OF THE REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
Today an estimated one-th1y.4 of Hong Kong's 3,000,000 population
are refugees from Communist China. The city is dotted with thousands of .
huts of all descriptions, all crowded with people. Every room, every
corridor, every landing and staircase, every corner where al bed can fit
is occupied. For half a million of these refugees "home" is just a bed-
space in a room corner, under a dark staircase or on a roof top. Thousands
sleep in the streets.
The main burden of caring for this large group of refugees from
communism is born by the Government of Hong Kong at a current annual cost
of over $40,000,000. A number of private agencies provide emergency help.
In addition to the one million refugees from Communist China in
Hong Kong, thousands have gone on to the Portuguese colony of Macao
(150,000 to 200,000), to Burma (100,0n0 to 150,000), and to Laos (about
30,000). Some 2,000,000 refugees from Communist China in the last fourteen
years have gone to Formosa; perhaps 100,000 or less have ultimately reached
Japan, other parts of Southeast Asia, the United States, Brazil and Europe.
Still in Communist China are some 9,000 European "refugees" --
for the most part White Russians who fled from the Bolsheviks after the
1917 revolution in Russia. They are waiting for exit permits and for
opportunities to migrate overseas.
One of the bright spots in the entire refugee picture has been
the resettlement of 1.8 million Koreans who fled south after a Soviet-
controlled North Korean regime was formed above the 38th parallel in May
1948.
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Since June of 1950, hundreds of millions of dollars in aid has *
been made available by the free peoples of various countries for relief,
reconstruction, and the resettlement of refugees, in Korea. Altogether,
49 nations, more than 60 non-governmental organizations, and untold
numbers of individuals joined in contributing tremendous amounts of food,
medical supplies, equipment and clothing to aid the Korean victims of
Communist aggression.
In November 1952 the United Nations Korean Reconstruction Agency
began the extensive relief program which had been voted by the UN General
Assembly. It imported $14 million worth of consumer goods, mostly food,
to be distributed by the ROK government. It allocated $70 million for
industry, agriculture, forestry, fisheries, mining, education, housing,
medical facilities, and welfare services. By the end of 1956 the UNKRA
program had contributed a total of $140 million to Korea and its refugees.
Slowly, industries long idle began to stir, and consumer goods began to
flow again.
With. equipment and technical assistance furnished under UNKRA's
Community Development Program, villagers and refugees built roads, sewers
and irrigation systems, dams, dikes and canals, bridges, orphanages, schools,
churches, and hospitals.
Another heartening milestone in the resettlement of refugees from
communism was the help provided for one million Vietnamese who fled from
the Communist-controlled north to the free south, when Vietnam was
partitioned in July 1954.
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BUILDING A NEW LIFE: THE RESETTLEMENT OF THE REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
The difficulties of caring for the refugees who arrived in free
South Vietnan by sea and air at the rate of six to seven thousand each day
were tremendous. Problems of this mass movement fell upon a country already
exhausted and disorganized by war. But the new government of President
Ngo Dinh Dion strove desperately to provide the refugee with food, water
and temporary shelter until permanent settlements could be established.
Gradually everyone arriving from the north was sorted out and
established in new homes. Skilled workers, such as blacksmiths, shoe-
makers, weavers and the like, were reestablished wherever their trades
were most beneficial to themselves and to the community. Others were
trained in such trades as ceramics and brickmaking. Fishermen were settled
along the coast, and farmers began to work throughout the countryside of
South Vietnan. Some farmers resumed the wet rice cultivation they knew
best; others took up dry farming in the highlands. Still others settled
in forest areas to cut timber for new homes, eventually establishing farms
on the land they had cleared.
Some 350 new villages soon appeared in the free Republic of
Viet Nam. These villages are of three types: farming, fishing and
artisan. The smaller villages house from one to three thousand people,
the larger ones from five to seven thousand. Many of these "new" village
societies actually were moved virtually intact from the north, with the
same mayor and village elders, and the same Buddhist bonze, Catholic
priest or Protestant pastor. As often as not, the refugee villagers'
first act was to build a church.
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BUILDING A NEW LIFE: THE RESETTLEMENT OF THE REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
One of the best-known Vietnamese areas to be repopulated largely
by refugees was the Cai San Project southeast of Saigon between the town
of Cantho along the Mekong River and Rachgia on the Gulf of Siam. In this
area of 400,000 acres, abandoned during the war, same sixteen new villages
were developed to house approximately 100,000 persons. Seventeen new
canals totalling 320 miles in length were dug. The cultivation of rice
and other crops, plus the raising of fish between harvests, has provided
an important contribution to the South Vietnamese economy.
Another dramatic chapter in the story of Vietnam's refugees was
"Operation Brotherhood." Organized by the Philippine Junior Chaaber of
Commerce, in October 1954, this project sent a medical aid team to help
the Vietnamese refugees from communism. Following the Philippine example,
other teams came from Formosa, Thailand, Malaya and Japan. Other organi-
zations around the world sent contributions of money and medical equipment.
154
BUILDING A NEW LIFE: THE RESETTLEMENT OF THE REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
By Mark Piros
? :?tr?-?'.1 ''!VirAPP:r.?" 44 ? "TAI;q5.40-
PART II
The free world's reaction to the plight of the 200,000 Hungarians
.who fled after Soviet force crushed Hungary's 1956 freedom uprising was
instantaneous. In less than six months, 142,000 Hungarian refugees had
been granted permanent asylum in 35 countries, and by mid-1959 less than"
11,000 of the 200,000 remained in Austria.
Within days after the Hungarian refugee flow began, in early
November 1956, free world government selection missions and voluntary'
agencies were operating in Austria. Inspired and coordinated by the
Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, processing began at once,
red tape was cut, and in a matter of days the Intergovernmental Committee
for European Migration had begun its impressive operation of moving
refugees to new homes. Switzerland, France and West Germany sent trains
to the frontier to pick up refugees as they arrived from Hungary -- with-
out any attempt at pre-selection.
The countries which took large numbers of Hungarian refugees
included Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia,
Denmark, the Dominican Republic, France, the German Federal Republic,
1,
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BUILDING A NEW LIFE: THE RESETTLEMENT OF THE REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
Great Britain, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand,
Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the Union of South Africa, the United
States, and Venezuela.
The newest refugees from communism -- th( Tibetan escapees of
1959 -- are gradually being settled in India. At Dalhousie, in North
India, a Tibetan religious center is being established. Other refugees
have been sent to the protectorates of Sikkim and Bhutan. Both areas are
short of labor and are expected eventually to provide havens for a large
proportion of the refugees. The Tibetans sent there will work on roads
and on other public projects and become artisans of various kinds. The
leaders of Sikkim have shown much interest in the new arrivals. Donations
made to the Institute of Tibetology will provide posts for Tibetan
scholars and make possible the preservation of the Tibetan Buddhist
culture being exterminated in Tibet by the Chinese Communists.
Persons associated with Tibetan relief work believe the number
of those escaping may eventually reach 20,000.
Free world officials have been greatly encouraged by the recent
acceptance by many countries of so-called "hard-to-resettle" refugees, of
whom there are an estimated 50,000 still in Europe alone. Represented in
this "difficult-to-resettle" category are a variety of national groups,
including many individuals who are ill or of advanced age. Those in
Europe include Czechoslovaks, Hungarians, Balts, Bulgarians, Rumanians,
Albanians, and a number of minority nationalities from the USSR. Many of
these people escaped from behind the Iron Curtain after World War II but,
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BUILDING A NEW LIFE: THE RESETTLEMENT OF THE REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
for one reason or another, have not been able to migrate overseas or to
integrate locally. Some are disabled, old, or ill. Others are members of
families with many children -- the so-called "uneconomic families."
Refugee annals contain many tragic stories. Some family units,
all of whose members but one were eligible for emigration, have remained
together rather than leave behind a loved one suffering from some physical
or mental disability.
While some countries have been unable to accept certain ill or
disabled refugees, Belgium, France, West Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden
and New Zealand have over the past several years opened their doors to a
substantial number of the handicapped, including active tubercular cases
and those requiring institutional care.
Norway has taken some 450 old and tubercular refugees, and 41
blind persons, all with their family members. Sweden has accepted more
than 700 refugees suffering from active TB, along with approximately 600
of their dependents. Another 300 refugees who could not find ordinary
employment because of age or disability were taken on as special workers
by the Swedish State Archives.
Belgium has been particularly active in welcoming handicapped
refugees. All told, some 800 difficult cases, either institutional or
semi-institutional, have found new homes in that country.
Another 1,000 of the hard-to-resettle refugees have been helped
by the organization "Aid to Displaced Persons" eotablished by the Belgian
priest, Father Georges Pire, who received the 1958 Nobel Prize for his
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BUILDING A NEW LIFE: THE RESETTLEMENT OF THE REFUGEES FROM COMMUNISM
humanitarian work. He has established a series of European villages (in
Germany, Austria, Belgium and Norway) whose populations are recruited
;exclusively from the ranks of the "hard-core" cases, with primary emphasis
on large families. Father Fire has also sponsored the "adoption" of some
15,000 refugee families by people throughout Europe.
New Zealand recently granted visas to the largest single contin-
gent of handicapped refugee families accepted for resettlement by any non-
European country. Twenty families, each with at least one handicapped
member, have already sailed to new homes in New Zealand.
.Many resettlement problems
remain, however. The flow of refugees
from Communist-ruled countries shows few signs of abating. The difficulties
faced by refugees in crossing the "Iron Curtain" and establishing them-
selves in free countries are not becoming less. The flow of refugees into
Western Europe alone continues to average more than half a million a year.
Meanwhile, the successful resettlement of more than 90 percent
of those who have already fled serves as a beacon of encouragement to new
refugees and those who seek to help them. Working ceaselessly, the govern-
ments and individuals of the free world are providing more than homes for
the homeless; they are helping to restore each refugee's sense of personal
dignity. Most important of all, they are giving hope to millions who once
were disillusioned.
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THE RESETTLEMENT OF A HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITY IN CANADA: PART I
By George S. Allen
Dean, Faculty of Forestry,
University of British Columbia, Canada
(One of the more dramatic phases
of the escape of some 200,000 Hungarians to the
free world, following Soviet suppression of the
freedom uprising in November 1956, was the group
flight of the entire Forestry School of Hungary's
Sopron University. The University, a 150-year-
old school specializing in forestry, geology,
mining, and geodetics, had a proud tradition: in
1848, its faculty and students fought with the
Hungarian patriot Louis Kossuth in the Hungarian
War of Independence, which also was suppressed
when Russian troops were called in.
A century later, when Hungary and the
university again fell under Russian control,
courses in the Russian language and Marxism and
Leninism were introduced. In October- 1956,
students at Sopron--as did university students
throughout Hungary?rose up against their op-
pressors. They destroyed Russian monuments,
hauled down Soviet flags. Realizing that after
this neither the students nor the school had
any future in Hungary, on a November morning in
1956, without wasting timo to pack anything but
a few clothes, the group of 300--more than half
the entire university enrollment--fled to Austria,
five miles from Sopron.
This is an account of the university's
progress in the free world.)
On March 19, 19592 the Forestry faculty of the ancient Hungarian Uni-
versity of Sopron celebrated the 150th anniversary of its founding. The occasion
was one of great significance. Sopron dates back to the beginning of forestry
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THI3RESLPTTLMENT OF A HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITY IN CANADA: PART I
as a science, and is one of the oldest professional schools in the world.
Even more significant, its 150th anniversary was celebrated, not in Hungary,
but on the campus of the University of British Columbia in Canada. Never
before in history has a university left its homeland to migrate 10,000 miles
to settle in a strange land among a strange people.
By May 1959, 97 of the students had been graduated from the Sopron
Forestry Faculty in Canada (28 in 1958, and 69 in 1959). Another 50 will
graduate in 1960 and 1961, and Sopron will then have completed the task it
set out to do when it left Austria in December 1956, for Vancouver, B. C.,
Canada.
The migration began in November 1956, when Soviet tanks rolled into
Budapest, and shortly covered all of Hungary. As Assistant Dean L. Adamovich,
of the Sopron faculty, said: "Al]. of our students and faculty members were
in the revolution against the Russians, of course."
With tens of thousands of other Hungarians who had fought and prayed
for freedom, the students and staff of Sopron and their dependents fled across
the mist-shrouded border into nearby Austria.
The picture of an entire university fleeing from its homeland and
held together by its dean presented a challenge that Canada's representative
on the scene could not ignore. Since Canada was short of trained foresters,
and since the university wanted to migrate as a unit, the Honorable Jack
Pickersgill, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, in Vienna to study the
plight of the refugees, took up the cause with the Canadian Government. After
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THE RESETTLEMENT OF A HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITY IN CANADA: PART I
appropriate consultations, it was decided to invite the entire group to come
to Canada's West Coast, become a part of the University of British Columbia,
and take up where they left off in Sopron.
The University of British Columbia, at Vancouver, was enthusiastic
about receiving the group, but its facilities were already strained by the
booming growth of the province. Therefore, that first year, a construction
camp of a large Canadian newsprint producer, recently vacated, was offered to
the Sopron Forestry School. It was located 80 miles north of Vancouver, at
Powell River, a paper mill city on the jagged coast of British Columbia.
By early February the Hungarians were settled in the Powell River
quarters. Their first decision was to run the camp themselves and do their
own cooking. The Canadian Government paid for their food, and the company
supplied heat, light, furniture, blackboards, and washing and sewing machines.
The company barracks were divided into 22 classrooms, student and faculty
lounges, and living quarters.
Altogether, some 300 persons made the move: 28 teaching and supple-
mentary staff, 21 faculty wives, 50 children, and 200 students, of whom 20
were young women. Of the students, a total of about 150 will graduate with
a degree in forestry and several will graduate in other faculties; some 35
have dropped out for academic or financial reasons and may or may not return.
Most of the young women have married.
The two years passed on Canadian soil have not been easy ones for
the students or the faculty. There was the sudden uprooting of an old
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THE RESETTLEMENT OF A HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITY IN CANADA: PART I
educational institution, drawing students away from their families, and setting
out for an unknown land. The most difficult hurdle was the language, and much
effort has gone into the saving of this problem. At Powell River, classes
were held all during the day for all members of the group, with lectures by
university preessors,government and industry people on customs, culture,
economics, and the history of the free world, with particular emphasis on
Canada, their new home.
Later, the University provided special classes in English under
particularly well-qualified instructors. Progress in general has been good,
although some have had more difficulty than others with the new language.
One placewhere the language difficulties proved no obstacle was the soccer
field. The Hungarians, professions at the game, quickly defeated every
Canadian team in the neighborhood.
A course on forestry and economics of the American West Coast,
in contrast to European forestry, WAS added. The Powell River Company also
set aside a 160-acre plot of young timber as a demonstration forest for the
Hungarians. During the summer months, the students took to the woods with
the provincial Forestry-Service, various companies in the industry, the
Federal Science Services, and the national parks.
regular wages.
The Sopron Forestry School WAS moved from the Powell River Camp to
the University campus for the 1957-1958 school year. By the time all the
Hungarians have been graduated, the Sopron. Faculty also will have been
For this, they were paid
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assimilated into the U.B.C. Faculty of Forestry, other universities, industry,
and government services across the country.
It is gratifying to both the Sopron Faculty and the University that
five graduates of 1958 and 1959 were awarded bursaries or studentships by the.
National Research Council of Canada. Another won a graduate scholarship at
Yale University and another at the University of Washington, in the United
States. Several others are continuing their studies following graduation.
As far as job opportunities are concerned, some of the Sopron grad-
uates are not yet in technical occupations but are still doing semi-skilled
work related to forestry and the forest industry. As their knowledge of the
English language and local methods improves, however, they should be readily
absorbed by government services or by private industry.
The 1959 graduating class, numbering 69, will probably-have less
difficulty finding technical employment. Their English is better, they
had one more year of transition, and economic conditions have improved immeas-
urably. Most have already-found work with the Forest Service or with industry
and undoubtedly all will be placed during the next few months.
There is little doubt now that the Sopron students have become an
integral part of the student body of the University of British Columbia. The
important thing is that in spite of real difficulties with language, finances,
timetables, and overcrowding, and in spite of the strong pull of family ties,
only students have felt compelled to return to Hungary. The remainder are
staying, determined to become a part of this fresh new world in which freedom
and the dignity of man are not only still valued but honored.
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Some of the Sopron students,
led by Dean Roller, go out
Into the forests of Canada to
supplement their desk work.
By May 1959, ninety-seven of
the students had been
graduated from the Sopron
Forestry Faculty in Canada.
Fifty will graduate in 1960
and 1961, and Sopron will
then have completed the task
it set out to do when it fled
Hungary in December 1956.
One of the more dramatic phases
of the exodus of some 200,000
Hungarians after Soviet suppres-
sion of the 1956 freedom
uprising was the group flight of
the entire Forestry School of
Hungary's Sopron University. The
school resettled in Canada,
becoming a part of the Faculty
of Forestry of the University
of British Columbia.
Here, left to right, are Dean
Redman Roller of the Sopron
Forestry Faculty, who led his
students to freedom; George S.
Allen, Dean of the U.B.C.
Faculty of Forestry; John E.
Liersch; and Philip W. Bird,
a Canadian immigration official.
The four are shown at a meeting
in Abbotsford, British Columbia,
on the arrival of the Sopron
group in early 1957.
?
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THE RESETTLEMENT OF A HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITY IN CANADA: PART II
WHY WE FLED
By Kalman Roller
Dean of the Sopron Division, Faculty of Forestry
University of British Columbia, Canada
It is not an everyday occurrence when the students and staff of a
university leave their own country to find a new home so they can preserve
their ideal of freedom and live as free men. I believe I am not e......nceited when
I say that our exodus shall be written on the pages of history to provide
example and inspiration for generations to come.
What can we learn from the example of Sopron University?
First of all, this: ideas cannot be made acceptable through force;
new social systems cannot be created by oppression. Only-the will of the
people -- the free will of the people -- can create new social order.
It was not the will of the Hungarian people that a communistic
social system be adopted in our country; that system was forced upon us, and
the end result was that we had to start out on the journey of the homeless.
No one can evaluate what a tremendous failure this is from the point
of view of the Soviet system.
The conscience of nations will long remember those pages of Soviet-
Hungarian history which Mr. Khrushchev can never explain satisfactorily to any
intelligent man.
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Canada's reception of these refugees, on the other hand, shall
everlastingly remain a bright page in Canada's history. It is an immensely
positive contribution to the whole of humanity when a nation gives new homes
and hope to so many refugees. I am quite sure the entire free world regards
this action of the Canadian people as an outstanding expression of
humanitarianism and understanding.
But our task is not yet over. We ask all people, even as we pledge
ourselves, not to let the flame of freedom disappear. This is our common
duty, because it is false to believe that any one country can remain free for
any length of time while other countries are cruelly oppressed.
We must explain to everybody-- workingmen, intellectuals, socialists
and even communists -- that the imperialistic intentions of Bolshevism are
only camouflaged as Socialism. In a small, destroyed country like our Hungary,
nothing especially Hungarian happened. The revolution was not the outcome of
fiery Hungarian temperament. It was a fight for the freedom of humanity and
especially for the freedom of the working class.
No sacrifice is too great for the sake of freedom and the eventual
victory of man's conscience. As I saw it, to leave the native land, the beloved
old home, parents, sisters and brothers, and the respected profession, to try
to help the helpless at home, and to work in the interest of the whole free
world that was not too great a sacrifice.
Those of us who are now living in Canada want to help our country
and our school by finishing the job begun at Sopron and completing the training
of our students in their free land. Some of these may some day return to their
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native country and serve it by rejuvenating the old ideals and adding to them
those gained in the fresh and wholesome younger civilization of this great
country.
Those who become citizens of Canada, and there will be many of these,
will contribute in an important way by sinking their Sopron roots deeply into
their new country and placing their strength and resources at its disposal.
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The Reverend Dominique Georges Henri
Pire, a Roman Catholic Priest at the
Dominican Monastery of La Sarte in Huy,
Belgium, was awarded the 1958 Nobel
Peace Prize for the work he has done
in helping to resettle thousands of
refugees. His organization, Aid to
Displaced Persons, has particularly
aided those refugees In the "difficult-
to-resettle" category.
Here Father Pire holds a small refugee
child at the European Refugee Village
at Bregenz, Austrirt.
FATHER PIRE: NOBEL PRIZEWINNER FOR REFUGEE WORK
Construction engineer Vladyslav Cichon, 58, and his wife are two of the many refugees who
have found homes and a new life in villages founded by Father Pire. Originally from Poland,
in 1943 the whole family was taken to Nazi Germany to work as slave laborers. After the
war they spent many years in overcrowded refugee camps, and prospects for their future were
discouraging, particularly since Mr. Cichon had tuberculosis. Today they live in a European
refugee village at Aachen, Germany. Their oldest son works, and two daughters are being
educated in England.
By Anne Burns
(Miss Burns met the 1958 Nobel Peace Prizewinner
during a recent stay in Belgium)
A Belgian priest who until recent months was virtually unknown out-
side of his native country F2S awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 1958 for the
work he has done in behalf of thousands of refugees.
He is the Reverend Dominique Georges Henri Pire, a Roman Catholic
priest at the Dominican Monastery of La Sarte in Huy, Belgium, and the founder
of the organization, Aid to Displaced Persons.
Through this organization, Father Pire has worked in humble anonym-
ity to aid the residue of refugees -- the so-called "hard-to-resettle" persons
who can neither emigrate nor return to their homelands. He has worked for the
human integration of thousands of persons through refugee villages, homes for
the aged, and individual sponsorships.
On December 10, 1958, the Nobel Prize Committee presented Father
Pire the award for peace: "To him who will have worked the hardest to bring
abbut a spirit of fraternity among peoples."
When asked about his award, the 46-year-old Dominican said that the
Nobel Prize Committee had understood well the lesson of love in awarding the
Peace Prize to "one who is unknown."
Father Pire added "my plan was born more than ten years ago to help
the refugees. The scheme is set -- villages, homes for the aged, parrainage,
(godfathering) -- but the dream is elastic. It can go on and on.
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FATHER PIRE: NOBEL PRIZEWINNER FOR REFUGEE WORK
"Theregre two aspects to my dream. To help the refugees now; to
get them out of the attics and the gutters, and to show them they can hope
again.
"My second aim is to unite us all through love. That is the 'Europe
of the Heart' that extends beyond national boundaries. We are every man's
brother and we must be united through love, through compassion for the man
- who is in need. Love is the most important thing on earth, and the farther
c I go in life the more I see how little people love each other."
Father Pire explained that Aid to Displaced Persons is international
and non-denominational. No questions are asked when a refugee arrives. What
he needs is "a roof, some work, a free country to live in, and his homeland to
dream about. The refugee may be in rags, he may be a drunkard, perhaps not
the best example of the country from which he has fled, but he is a human being
with infinite value."
Homes for the aged, of which there are now four in Belgium repre-
sented Father Pire's first effort toward helping the refugees. After listening
to a talk by a young U. S. Army officer, Colonel Edward Squadrille, who had
directeda displaced persons camp for the United Nations Relief and Rehabili-
tation Administration in Austria, Father Pire asked how he could help. This
resulted in his founding homes for aged refugees. There are twenty persons in
each home, usually older married couples who live within the privacy of their
own room with their own possessions about them.
Father Pire also began the parrainage, a form of sponsorship by which
persons correspond with a refugee and come to know him. If money is sent, it
'
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FATHER FIRE: NOBEL PRIZEWINNER FOR REFUGEE WORK
is because the correspondent knows his friend needs shoes, or his son needs a
coat for school. Today the parrainage plan includes thousands of correspondents.
The Nobel Prizewinner also founded refugee villages in Germany,
Austria and Belgium. In Norway, ground has been broken for the sixth of these
villages. It will be called the Anne Frank village, after the teen-ager who
with her family hid from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic, and later died in the
infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany.
In these villages the refugees form their own communities, work if
they able, and participate in the life of the community in which they reside.
. There are usually twenty homes to a village -- new houses built with
the skilled, donated labor of those in the community. Each home is for a single
family. Large families have priority, as well as widows with children, the
disabled and others of the "hard-to-resettle" refugees. There are 50,000 of
these difficult-to-resettle cases among the 175,000 European refugees who
are still waiting resettlement.
Father Fire cautions, however, that the work must go slowly.
"I am only one man; I have only one life. This work cannot be
accomplished with a sweep of the hand. There is no love in that. I can build
only village at a time. I must try to build it better than the last, better
in so many ways.
In a recent speech, Father Pire succinctly summed up the credo of
Aid to Displaced Persons: "Each one of us can place himself before the refugees.
For instance, suppose that I am a selfish man and I meet 200,000 persons who
lack the essentials of life. It will prompt me to be less selfish. But from
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FATHER PIRE: NOBEL PRIZEWINNER FOR REFUGEE WORK
the point of view of society, the message of the suffering displaced persons
is clear. Their misery has been there, staring at us for fourteen years, so
that working together we must remedy it. Thus their misery serves to unite
us."
A barrier to this work, said Father Pire, is the barrier that men
build to keep each other out of the circle of human kindness, which admits
only those of a like kind.
"I have no hidden, mysterious mandate from a church or a country,"
he says. "I am bound by no borders. I belong to no political party. I am
simply pro-human."
When honored by the Belgian Government, after he had received the
Nobel Prize, Father Pire said:
"To answer suffering with material help is nothing. To help to
emigrate, to shelter, feed even a stranger, someone uprooted -- that is to
say, someone who is sick above all within -- all this is useless if there is
no love.
"The exercise of love for those who suffer will make us discover,
between them and ourselves, and between all who united to help them, ties
which join us all together, which represent our common denominator. I have
called this union the 'Europe of the Heart'. Nothing should prevent others
from creating the 'Asia of the Heart', the 'Africa of the Heart', the Americai
of the Heart', and one day, let us hope, the 'World of the Heart'."
In awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Father Pire, Dr. Gunnar Jahn,
president of the Nobel Prize Committee, summed up the opinion of the committee
when he said:
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FATHER PIRE: NOBEL PRIZEWINNER FOR REFUGEE WORK
"If the importance of the work undertaken by the Reverend Father Pire
must be estimated in terms of the number of refugees whom he has saved, some
will perhaps say that the sum total of his labors is not very great. But, as
is so often the case, it is not necessary to deliver judgment by using solely
statistics as a basis. What counts is the spirit which has animated the work
of Father Pire; that which he has sown in the hearts of nen and which, let us
hope, the future will bring to bear in the form of disinterested work in favor
of our fellowmen plunged in misery."
Father Pire is once again in Huy, at the Dominican Monastery of
La Sarte, where he has lived since 1926, and where he was on retreat when he
learned of his award. He is completing plans for the Anne Frank Village, and
giving conferences on sociology and philosophy when he has time, all within
the framework of his life as a Dominican priest. He also has been awarded the
French Legion of Honor and the Belgian War Cross for his work in the underground
during World War II.
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SUCCESS IN THE FREE WORLD: HUNGARIAN GENERAL BECOMES TEACHER
Major General Bela Kiraly, who in October 1956 commanded Budapest freedom fighters
in their valiant but unsuccessful revolt against Hungary's Communist regime, is now
planning to become a teacher. In June 1959 he received a Master of Arts degree from
ColunOia University in New York City. Now forty-seven years old, General Kiraly was
the only high-ranking officer to escape from Hungary after Soviet suppression of the
revolt.
He is shown holding a plague "To honor Hungarian newspapermen and writers who kept
the torch of freedom burning during the darkest days of Communist oppression, who
gave their lives in the national Hungarian uprising of 1956 and suffered for their
belief, proving that freedom of expression and a free press are the only guarantees
of freedom for the individual and nation." The plague was dedicated on December 9,
1958 by the American Newspaper Guild, the Association of American Editorial Cartoon-
ists, the Graduate School of Journalism of Columbia University, the International
Federation of Free Journalists, the Newspaper Guild of New York, the Overseas Press
Club of America, and the P.E.N. Club Center for Writers in Exile.
By Fred Brewer
(Mr. Brewer is Assistant to the Director of
the News Office of Columbia University,
New York City)
A tall, greying man in his early forties, shabbily dressed in a
guard's castoff uniform that did not fit, walked through the gates of a
prison into a shadowy back street of his native city. Five years imprison-
ment, four of which had been under threat of execution, had made him sick,
pale and thin. He paused to look at the towering gray walls that had en-
closed him, wondering why he had been released, for the governments's
charges against him were serious -- saboteur, conspirator, spy.
Now he had freedom of a sort -- six months' parole. Re looked
down the street, briefly bewildered by which way to go. At last, he cross-
ed and walked past yellow-plastered buildings toward the city's west bank.
He hoped he might find some old friends who probably by now thought him
dead. It was September 5, 1956. He was Bela Kalman Kiraly, ex-major
general of his nation's army. With his fingers he tried to press out a few of
the wrinkles in the old uniform as he slowly walked into the intellectual and
artistic heart of Budapest, Hungary...
On June 2, 1959 General Kiraly, now forty-six years old, was among
6,591 men and women who were graduated from Columbia University in New York
City. He received a master of arts degree from the Graduate Faculties. To
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SUCCESS IN THE FREE WORLD: HUNGARIAN GENERAL BECOMES TEACHER
i,
it
, ,*43.!,- 175is,an,especially high honor for it will mark a major step toward a
- -\f'rtiNt__-?--.' . ,. : ? : ,'
career he Most earnestly wants -- teaching. But teaching also will be a
major reverse from his previous profession -- the military. And the class-
roam in which he someday hopes to lecture will inno way resemble the stark
and.dmoking,streets of Budapest Where he commanded Hungary's Freedom Fighters
in Octobdiand7earlovd-heit?Of-1956.'11Whei the-people of his land fought
0
Soviet tanks with-cobblesEones and diving Soviet aircreft with hunting rifles.
*-r;e1a.47:Gineral Kiraly was a.professional Soldier who joined the Communist
?
Party-tin Hungairafter.World War II. Herose:to the rank of Major General
amt-betamer!commandei-of the general staff college of the Hungarian Army. In 1951
helms thioWn'Anto-prison for opposing political pressures on the military
forces and_was*expelled-from the Party. Five years later he was released,
just ieVen,weeks before the beginning of the freedom uprising.
Turingithe revolution he was in command of the Budapest sector of
the.Hungarian Revolutionary Forces. On November-10, after Soviet troops had
completed theirsuppression of the revolt, he fled hid Communist homeland
the Only-ttop officer to escape from Hungary.
- "Before I teach," General Kiraly said recently, "I wish to obtain
doOtor of philosophy degree in history at Columbia. To receive it, it is
only necessary that I take my oral examination and write a,dissertation."
,
General Kiraly has n?political aspirations relative to Hungary, nor
,
has2he any family,there. He-is now a permanent resident of the United States,
anCintends.to become a citizen when; in 1962, his five-year resident requirement
is ended and he is eligible for naturalization.
176
No
Arto?
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SUCCESS IN THE FREE WORLD: ?HUNGARIAN GENERAL BECOMES TEACHER
"I would, of course, help crush Communism wherever I could," he
said, "but to return to Hungary now...it would mean my death. It is in
the American youth Where my future lies. I have great confidence in the
boys and girls of this country, and I would like to devote the rest of my
life to them."
Since he became a student at Columbia, General Kiraly has been
given several leaves from his classroom work to talk to American youth. In
March 1959, for example, he took an extensive tour of the midwestern, southern
and southwestern parts of the United States, lecturing to school and college
audiences.
"I presented three different lectures," he said, "I talked about
the recent Hungarian revolution as the first major blow against Soviet Communism,
the inherent weaknesses of Russian strength, and the Hungarian church which is
the thorn in Russia's heel."
A series of similar lectures in 1957 first impressed him with the
desire to teach.
"When I came to the United States, my English was bad. Friends,
*however, persuaded me to give lectures, and I was invited to colleges and
universities. American schools, I found, were excellent, and among the
faculty and student body I discovered a superb moral spirit."
He recalled how,durir.v his years under Communist rule in Hungary,
Russian propaganda portrayed America, its peoples and its institutions as
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SUCCESS IN THE FREI WORLD: HUNGARIAN GENERAL BECOMES TEACHER
groups huddled in shadows. "Rut," he said, "no one ever believed Russian
propaganda -- it is very poor. And one only had to look around in Hungary
to see that the Communists lied. Their inhumaneness could not -- and cannot
-- be glossed over by propaganda."
Since he has been in the United Stmtes, General Kiraly has been
extremely busy. Not only has there been school work, but he is also engaged
in numerous other tasks. He is executive co-chairman of the Hungarian Freedom
Fighters Federation, which helps Hungarian refugees settle in free world
countries. He is a member of a Hungarian group of seventeen persons with
functions somewhat similar to a government-in-exile. He is vice-chairman of
the political committee of the Assembly of Captive European Nations, a group
whose aim is the liberation of Communist-dominated nations. He writes numerous
articles, and addresses many groups.
In June 1959 General Kiraly went to Geneva to attend ceremonies
marking the execution in 1958 of Freedom Premier Imre Nagy and his Defense
Minister, General Pal Maleter. At that time he said that Premier Nagy's
'capture by the Russians after he had been assured safe-conduct, and his
execution, in 1958, despite repeated formal assurances that he and his
associates would not be prosecuted, caused world-wide protests of unprecedented
magnitude. Indeed, Imre Nagy and Pal Maleter are martyrs, and not to the
Hungarian people alone. The Hungarian revolution as an important milestone in
humanity's struggle for freedom; Imre Nagy and Pal Maleter have become symbols
of that struggle."
178
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SUCCESS IN THE FREE WORLD: HUNGARIAN GENERAL BECOMES TEACHER
"I must tell others about the inhumanity of the Communists," he
explains. "It would be a tragedy for the free world if the youth of that
world would only find out about their inhumaneness by experiencing it in
their own countries. /t is the duty of youth to find out how cruel Communists
are, and I must help."
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401.
A BUILDING IN DARKNESS
By Stanley J.C. Wright
Special Assistant to the United Natiohs High Commissioner
for Refugees
From United Nations Review
A refugee camp on the Greek island of Tinos, in
the Aegean Sea, was once home for 130 escapees
from Communist Rumania. Today those refugees
have all been resettled with the help of the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees. Among those who
have found new lives is lonis Rimbald, who works
on a steamer and lives in Pyraeus, Greece.
Captain Karajanes never surrendered hope during
his years as a refugee on Tinos. He walked the
harbor, studied the boats at anchor, and dis-
cussed their merits with other sailors. Finally,
refugee officials were able to register his
papers in Greece, and today he is the proud
master of the tanker SS PTOLEMEUS.
Tinos Refugee Camp, on a Greek island
in the Aegean Sea, was formally closed
in December 1957. For five years it
had been the temporary home of 130
refugees from Communist Rumania. The
final resettlement of these refugees
was made possible with Nobel Peace
Prize money awarded to the Office of
the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees.
Here K. Tsitidis, a representative of
the Ministry of Welfare, formally
closes the door of the camp after the
last refugee had departed. Today Tinos
is truly "a building in darkness."
Reprinted by permission
In 1955: when I visited the Greek island of Tinos for the first time,
I was warned that the refugee camp there was one of the most depressing in
Europe. Not that conditions of life were worse than in many other such places,
but being on an island made the refugees feel completely cut off from life --
like exiles, to use the expression of the Representative in Greece of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Already when the ship pulled into the harbor I saw small groups of
people waiting on the pier. They were some of the refugees who had come to
greet the Representative. As soon as we landed, they approached us and started
asking questions about the possibilities of their being able to leave. They
walked with us toward the hotel and in an unhurried and quiet way listened to
the explanations.
The following morning I tad the opportunity to learn more about the
individual problems of the families. Practically all oftbe 130 refugees
most of them Greeks from Rumania -- wanted to resettle overseas. Everyone
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A BUILDING IN DARKNESS
spoke of a visa as something expected within the next week or so. Manz/
showed letters from voluntary agencies, from consulates, from friends over-
seas. But the optimism. WS forced and unnatural; underneath there was always
an undertone of anxiety and uncertainty.
It was clear that at heart all were obsessed by the fear that the
world had forgotten them. In fact no one had a positive notion of when he
might leave.
Lacking the money to pay for the sea trip to Athens, the refugees
did not even have the satiAfaction of being able to visit the consulates
personally to follow up their cases but had to rely entirely on social workers
from voluntary agencies and the High Commissioner's Office.
Meanwhile, on their island of exile the present was a life of in-
activity, as Tinos could offer almost no work. There was the adman who made
some money selling peanuts and chocolates to the tourists and to the pilgrims
who came in thousands every year to pray at the miraculous Icon of the Holy
Virgin, which is kept in the beautiful Church of St. Mary's on the hill over-
looking the small town of Tinos; there was a middle-aged man working as a
waiter in a small restaurant; the young sailor who occasionally helped unload
the small ships putting into harbor, and the barber who walked the length and
breadth of the island to earn a few drachmae with which to buy a little extra
food for his son. Some of the women crocheted all day to make small tray
cloths which they sold in the street.
Food was a major problem with all of them. Their diet was composed
of bread, onion soup, vegetables, olives and coffee. Clothes posed another
problem; so did money for cigarettes and the little amenities of life.
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A BUILDING IN DARKNESS
Not surprisingly, I came away from Tinos deeply depressed, for at
that time there was in fact very little immediate prospect of the refugees
there being resettled. It was not that good will was lacking. Far from it.
But there was so much uncertainty about immigration programa that no one --
even in authority -- could estimate the real prospects for the refugees. As
for local resettlement, funds at our disposition were already stretched to
the limit to cover other urgent phases of the program, which had only begun
that same year, financed by the United Nations Refugee Fund.
Then in November 1955 we learned that the Office had. been awarded
the 1954 Nobel Prize for Peace. The late High Commissioner, Dr. J. G. van
lieuven Goedhart, decided that the prize money., amounting to some $35,000,
should be applied to the completion of one specific undertaking and invited
each of his representatives,. in 11 different countries, to submit a project.
The one finally selected, with the unanimous consent of the staff, was the
closure of Camp Tinos. Shortly afterwards, a full-time social worker was
assigned to the camp.
The goal was to find a permanent solution for every refugee so that
the camp could. be closed without tl-eTe having to be a single transfer to another
camp. This meant a careful examination of resettlement opportunities and an.
earnest search for alternative possibilities for those who would have to remain
in Greece. It meant, in addition, a close cooperation between the social worker
and the refugee, for, in every case, it was essential that the refugee himself
should freely take his own decision regarding his future. This was not always
easy, particularly in cases where emigration proved impossible and the refugees
nevertheless refused to consider any other solution. However, as time passed
1-?
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A BUILDING IN DARKNESS
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and the camp began to empty, even those who still tenaciously clung to their
hope for a future overseas began to accept the inevitable.
Even with the Nobel Prize money, more funds were needed to finish
the job, but fortunately the Norwegian Refugee Council and Swiss Aid to Europe
came forward with $10,000 each to rake up the difference.
On December 15: 1957, I was again invited by the Representative of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Greece to visit Tinos.
This time it was to witness the official closing of the camp, just two years
after the award of the Nobel Prize that had made it possible. As we landed
and. walked toward our hotel, our guide pointed to a building in darkness stand-
ing there beside the harbor. "There it is," he said, "empty but for the luggage
of one refugee who left for Athens a few days ago."
Mr. James M. Read, the Deputy High Commissioner, referred to this
incident the following day when he pronounced the camp officially closed. He
said:; "When I arrived last night, I was struck by two things: on the house
where we were staying I noticed two flags flying, the Greek flag and the flag
of the United Nations. This was a deeply moving gesture on the part of our
host which went to the hearts of all of us who work with the Organization.
The other was a building in darkness. Now, we usually associate darkness with
a feeling of despair, despondency, even death. Light we associate with encour-
agement, hope and life. But the darkness of this building filled me with joy:
for here was a dream come true. Two years ago we started the attempt to close
one refugee camp; today we have succeeded in doing so."
184
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A BUILDING, IN DARKNESS
"At the same time," he noted, "we are fulfilling our promise to Dr.
van Heuven Goedhart and showing that one can get rid of what he called "those
black spots on the face of Europe."
Camp Tinos has been closed and all the refugees have been returned
to an active life. The barber now has his own shop in Athens; the olds=
selling peanuts has his little house in Tinos; the waiter is working in
Salonika; the sailor has been resettled overseas. Most of the old people have
moved into a beautiful, well-run home that has been built in cooperation with
the World Council of Churches and the Church Foundation of St. Mary's of Tinos.
True, there are still a few eases where *t is not yet possible to write the
word "closed" over the file. One man, his wife are living in Athens, but
their two sons are in America and have suffered from the separation. A young
man and his sister find themselves unable to adapt themselves to a normal life
again; a grain merchant is not sure whether he will be able to make a living
out of his little business, which he has started with a loan from the Nobel
Peace Prize money.
When the lock was turned to close the camp forever, one of the former
refugees, now resettled in a home on Tinos, spoke: "Nobody who has not been
refugee for years," he said, "nobody who has not suffered from the uncertainty
-we have felt for so long, can understand the depth of my feeling when I say
'thank you' to all who have made this moment possible."
Tinos the camp exists no more. An empty building is all that remains
()fit.
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A BUILDING IN DARKNESS
Dr. August R. Lindt, successor to Dr. van Heuven Goedhart, received
authorization from the United Nations General Assembly during its last session
to collect funds to begin an intensified effort to close all the camps in Europe
by the end of 1.960. This year alone (1958) it is hoped that 59 camps in Austria
and Germany will be shut forever and theie 13,000 occupants resettled. Progress
will depend to a large extent on the availability of funds; some $7,500,000,
taking into account money already received or pledged, is still needed to close
the rest.
Tinos is a dream come true, a case of particular interest because of
the difficulty of the problem and the fact that the means to solve it mater-
ialized "out of the blue" in the form of the Nobel Prize. But its larger
significance lies not so much in its singularity but in the fact that it forms
part of a pattern of international scope and that it is an example of what can
be achieved in an all-out campaign ' , solve one of the great human afflications
of our time.
186
This article appeared in the February 1958 issue of United
Nations Review, published monthly by the Office of Public
Information at U.N. Headquarters. All material in the
Review maybe freely reprinted, but acknowledgement is
requested, together with a copy of the publication contain-
ing the reprint.
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