Evening star., 1941-10-23
Wrecked by Five-Day
Fire, Kiev Is Facing
Uncertain Winter
Hidden Russion Mines
Set OF BIozes After
Germon Occupation
BY ERNEST G. FISCHER,
Associated Press War Correspondent

hoSoNietVd fIesS Vti SOI2kBpOHucnls
WITH THE GERMAN ARMY IN
KIEV, Oct. IA delayed What
winter win bring remains to be seen
In this German captured city,
bombed and battered in weeks Of
siege and left by the Russians to
burn.
The food problem has been solved
by the German Army's soup kitch-
ems, but as winters snow swirls
through the charred ruins OF burned
buildings, the sight Of women and
children hunting for firewood is not
. reassuring sign.
Delayed fires were set of by
hidden Russian mines after the city
was occupied and burned for five
days. razing 20 blocks even after
10000 explosives had been made
harmless, Nazi officers told me dur
ing a conducted tour. Bridges are
in ruins.
Many of the mines, they said,
were set to explode from radio i'm
pulse and others were hooked up
with the electricity system.
There were no signs Of street
fighting in Kiev itself, but in the
outskirts some buildings had been
shelled and others hit by machine
gun bullets.
Great Forest Hacked Down.
On the western edge a great for
est had been hacked down and the
trees piled up for barricades against
the German tanks.
The f1ve-day fire, which began
September "A, five days after the
Germans raised their battle flass
over Kiev's citadel, has presented a
great problem in providing for the
city's inhabitants. Normally there
are 100000, but I was told 800 900
were shifted elsewhere rs the Ger
man armies began closing in.
A German officer told me $4,000
lost their homes in the fire. Today,
more than three weeks after the
city's occupation, stores still are
closed and streetcars stand idly
where they were stopped when the
Germans arrived.
There is as pm. curfew. Elec-
tricity is being used only reservedly
I'VE hesitated to turn on cleo
tricity for fear Of throwing switches
that would set of the mines" said
one officer.
However, I was told one-fourth
of the factories vital to the life Of
the people of Kiev" had been put
back to work.
Plants Blown Up.
I'm some cases" my German in
formant asserted. the Bolshevists
took the most vital machines out
OF factories and In other cases the
plants were blown up.
But in many instances plant
managers who had been ordered
to destroy a factory disobeyed Or
ders."
Some army kitchens still are func-
tioning on q food-for-work basis of
exchange.
AT Rovno, a war-torn town Of
10000 population, about half Jew
ish, where I stopped en- route here,
Jews and war prisoners were clean
ing up the debris of wrecked build.
ings-the Jews under German-or-
ganized compulsory labor, the pris-
oners under German bayonets.
There are few undamaged struc-
lures anywhere in the once-PoEsh
city.
Refugees Returning.
Near zhitomir, another stopping
place, I saw the first westward
migrati OF refugees who, driven
east by the tides OF war, were re-
turning now to their towns and
farms in German-occupied areas.
They moved along roads lined
with the debris OF war-tanks al
most every few yards for the 800
mile stretch from Lwow to Kiev;
transport and gasoline trucks,
tractors and field guns.
Among all the tanks only nine
definitely were German, but some
were wrecked 50 badly or 80 scnrehed
by hre that 1t was impossible to
tell to whom they once belonged.