Berlin: 1,000 a Day

For weeks a grim rumor had chilled men's hearts on both sides of Germany's Iron Curtain. On Aug. 1, the Communists would block the last remaining loophole of escape from Soviet East Germany by closing the border between the East & West sectors of Berlin. Hearing the rumor, thousands of East Germans snatched up their puny belongings and fled the People's Paradise.

They risked severe punishments: under a new Communist law, it is an offense to leave one's home for more than 72 hours without Volkspolizei permission; even the "intent to flee" is punishable by loss of property. But as Der Tag approached, the flight took on the proportions of a mass exodus, hauntingly reminiscent of the terror-driven migrations of World War II D.P.s. Since the Berlin airlift (1948), refugees from Communist tyranny in East Germany have been stumbling into Berlin at the rate of 300 a month. Impelled by the deadline, the rate rose last month to more than 400 a day. Last week it soared to 1,000 a day.

Aug. 1 came & went without the expected shutting of the gates. But still the exodus continued. Besides the hundreds of refugees who turn up at 8 Kuno Fischer Strasse to register, and to be flown out to whichever West German province is most likely to find them a job, perhaps another 125,000 East Germans are hiding in West Berlin, living in a special purgatory of daytime wandering and nights in deserted bunkers.

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