Evening star., 1944-07-04
Refugees Pour Back
As Russiuns Push On
A Correspondents Description
of the Natives Return.
By James AIdridse,
North American Newspaper Alliance.

Ol luS 1NSUVSS NetuIus
By James AIdridse,
North American Newspaper Alliance.
WITH THE RED ARMY FORCES
GOING WESTWARD (By Wireless).-
While the Red Army moves forward
across the old Polish border, people of
many villages in this area are moving
eastward. The Germans had driven
these peasants westward as they re-
treated. Now these people are moving
back to their old homes. The Red Army,
however, overlook both the Germans
and the peasants. Now this whole area
is conslomeration of soldiers going one
way and old men, women and children
tramping along the roads and through
the fields in the opposite direction.
Most Of the peasants have largs
bundles which they either carry or pu'.
In small barrows. However, q number
Of them have acquired German anti
tank gun caissons, and these make
excellent carts. Others have managed
to get farm carts and some of the big
Belgian horses which the Germans left
behind.
What War Means to Them.
In these lines Of people the correct
value Of . battle is revealed. Few of
these people have kept their families
intact. None Of them has kept his
belongings intact, and most Of them do
not know what has happened to their
villages, their houses, their possessions
and their relatives.
Today I saw an old man by the side
OF the road, loaded down with q pile Of
bundles and 5-year-old girl beside
him. When the jeep Of q Red Army
colonel got stuck nearby we got out
to help haul 1t out Of the mud. Tho
old man came over and asked us to
take him to his village. He said that
he and his wife had been driven west
ward by the Germans and that he
and the child had become separated
from his wife. A short while ago,
though, he said he had found his wife
dead on the side Of the road Now
all he had were the bundles and the
child.
The child was the daughter Of his
own daughter. She and her husband
had been killed by the Germans.
Around the old man was q mess Of
dead Germans and smashed German
equipment. But that was no compen-
sation for him. He felt he was too old
to 60 back to his native village and
start all over again, but that was all
he could do.
Yesterday was at a village called
Sadarosh watching unit Of Red Army
sappers demining the roadside and the
fields. The people had lived under the
Germans three years in Sadarosh and
had watched them fortify the town.
Now they were helping TO pull down
all breastworks and dugouts and guild
ing the sappers to places where the
Germans had laid big mines.
Too Simple to Lie.
Then they started to talk about the
Germans killing all the Jews, hanging
partisans and taking away women and
children to Germany. This sort Of
thing is sometimes hard to believe, but
these people don't know belief and dis
belief. They are too simple to lie; yet
everything they say seems too incred-
ible to record or attempt to explain. I
can honestly write that I haven't yet
found . surviving Jew in any Of these
White Russian towns.
The war itself has grown to be part
Of the natural elements. such as earth.
quakes and thunderstorms. When YOU
see an S-year-old boy standing near .
completely decapitated German and
taking no notice OF him, but Just stand
ing there chewing on . piece Of bread.
you can gauge what these people have
been through.
Rehabilitation. however, will have to
wait. All the negative things must be
done first, and the people are doing them
now. Women and children are working
all along the roads, burying the thou
| sands of dead horses which leave an
odor for miles around the countrywide
Boys have become expert deminers. Al
though the Red Army tries to discourage
them because Of the danger
Towns such as Vitebsk and the hun
dredS of villages around 1t are in such
a mess that you wonder exactly where
the people are going to start In re-
building. If 1t has taken three years
! to destroy 50 much, 1t surely will take
Cd - A.