Bureaucratic Bottleneck

The hills around Besenhausen on the border between East and West Germany were veiled in sunlit haze one afternoon last week. On the Soviet side of the crossing point, a tired horde of D.P.s moved forward as the barrier pole swung up. On the British side, British officers and customs controllers, German border guards, police, priests, nuns, nurses and refugee administration officials looked at the sad group facing them.

From the British loudspeaker a voice began: "Achtung! Bitte Melden! Elizabeth Schmidt, mit zwei Kindern" Frau

Schmidt stumbled through the crowd with her two small sons by the hand. The boys carried a brown enamel soup can and tattered cloth shopping bags. The loudspeaker squawked again: "Paul Fehr. F-e-h-r." No one moved. A man's trembling voice spoke from the rear: "1st . . . nicht . . . mitgekommen [didn't come along]." As more names were read off, nearly half were "nicht mitgekommen" or "noch im Lager [still in camp]."

Every day, hundreds of refugees slip into West Germany illegally from the East, and officials take no notice of them. But the scene at Besenhausen was part of a bungled attempt to admit D.P.s to the West in an orderly way. "Operation Link" was what the British called their part of an Allied agreement to take from Poland 25,000 Germans who had relatives in West Germany. The names of those D.P.s approved by the Western powers had been duly listed, but thousands of others, not on the lists, had got exit permits or entry papers (Zuzugsgenehmigungen) from Polish or Allied agencies.

Need. At Besenhausen, German officials had received a list of 200 refugees ready for transfer from a Soviet zone camp at Heiligenstadt. Only 101 of the 200 were on the "Link" lists. Allied officials asked the East German authorities to send the 101 to the crossing point. But the Communists, for reasons of their own, sent nearly 300. Said a British official: "I'll take all that are on my list. That's all I can do. I'll send for another list to try to take care of the others."

Those who got across the border threw their arms around the welcoming nurses, or cried with relief; two women fell to their knees to kiss the soil of freedom. A little boy hugged his teddybear: "Teddy's come all the way from Liegnitz. He and I are going to live with uncle." One little girl, given an orange, had never seen one before, thought it was a yellow potato. The refugees left behind watched silently, too exhausted for envy, too worried for vicarious happiness. When the reading of the British list was ended, only 55 refugees had crossed the border.

This was the moment the Communists had been waiting for. They had organized a special tour for the press, and reporters rushed forward to get case histories of the people left behind. The Red loudspeakers went into action, blaring that the heartless Western powers were breaking an agreement and were cruelly refusing admission to the refugees. The Communists produced some special cases they had been saving: a paralyzed woman who had been hidden in a press radio truck, a blind woman, a father who had searched all over

Poland for his six children, had found three and brought them to the border, only to find that they were not on the list.

Nonsense. The Russian propaganda play was partially spoiled by the arrival of G.E.T.H. Evans, British resident officer for the nearby city of Gottingen. Incongruous among the D.P.s in his brown houndstooth-check jacket, dark brown flannels and yellow tie, Evans told the border officials to admit the neediest cases, whether or not they were on the Link lists. New Allied lists arrived which admitted more refugees, until 131 had crossed the border.

More than one observer felt that Allied prohibition of D.P.s not on Link lists was a bureaucratic stupidity which played into the Communists' hands. The green-clad German border police paced to & fro consoling their fellow Germans. Said one: "The High Commission accuses the Poles of dumping population on us. Sure, that's true. But it's sheer cruelty to rob these people of their last hope. The Allies say we already have 2,000,000 unemployed. Well, what's 90,000 more?" Said another:

"The Allied prohibition is nonsense. In the British zone, there is no law that says illegal border crossers will be sent back, and they never are." Some West Germans edged up to the refugees and whispered: "Just walk over here and sit down. The British won't make you go back."

For two paces the refugees could have had freedom. After years under the Nazis, years under a Communist regime in Poland, they were too cowed to try.

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