Evening star., 1948-03-31
Village Once Part of Russia
Carries Legacy of Suspicion

VI 00SPsNI"
out for q little pitcher Of beer and
brought from the kitchen cold goose
and stuffed cabbage. They made
quite q point Of the fact that the
cabbage was stuffed with rice that
had come In an American CARE
package.
When all the preliminary greet
ing were over and the excitement
had died down, they began to tell
us little Of what life had been un-
der the Russians.
Ceased to Be Free.
There were $500 people in that
town. The Russian military gov
ernment assigned to that town "a
members Of the NKVD Russian
security police)-and 10 police dogs
The local agricultural system was
abolished and the workers were put
on wages Of eight rubles day. A
loaf of barely edible Russian bread
cost something like 10 rubles-
which gives you an opportunity to
see what the scale Of living was.
AS one OF the leaders said, from
the moment the Russians got there
until the moment they left, every
step you took, every word you spoke
was observed. You ceased to live
as a free person. The NKVD set up
headquarters in the house of one OF
the priests. Every night some men,
bers of the village were called in for
interviewing and questioning. 1t
was absolutely prohibited to cross
the border which at that point was
to the west Of the town.
Because Of the hunger and misery,
many people tried. Sixteen OF them
were caught and every one Of them
was shipped away to Siberia. said,
Are any of them back now that re-
lations have been adjusted between
Czechoslovakia and Russia?"
They said, Yes. One"
I said, May I talk to him?"
Spirit Is Broken.
And they said, mo. He is a
little bit crazy since he has come
back. He stays to himself. He talks
to no one. His spirit is broken. We
even suspect he Is the Russians S
spy in this town, although we don't
know who Is a spy any more and
who isn't. We can tell you that
tomorrow In Uzhorad, which is the
capital Of the Russian region, it
will be known that you were both
here. Nobody trusts anybody in this
village any more"
We asked If we could 60 out and
see the border which is now to the
east Of the town. A couple Of the
villagers climbed in as guides and
we drove about miles to the next
village which Is now on the edge OF
the frontier.
We got out Of the car and walked
across some cabbage patches And
in the middle of the field, with
nothing in sight, our guides sud-
denly began to whisper. That is a
terrible symptom in Europe. You
can spot the places where trouble
has been or is coming when the
people start to whisper. And, to
anybody brought up the good Amer
ican atmosphere where you can say
what you please, it is a strange thing
to see people starting to whisper in
the middle of q field.
There 1t Is!
Then. In a whisper, one of them
said, There it is" We began to
see what the Russian frontier was.
The first thing that hit us were
frontier posts at, let's say, inter-
walls Of 4 hundred yards, first a
white one, then q red one. Slight
ly behind those were watch towers,
like our fre observation towers,
each within sight Of the. other, and
connected by a telephone line.
A little closer, we saw that the
land along the frontier had been
Iplowed. The natives explained that
the reason for that was to show
the footprints if any one attempted
to cross the border, and thus give
the police dogs q better start. Closer
and through the bushes you could
see the sentrjes moving back and
forth with their police dogs. Even
while we were still far away, we
could notice in one Of the towers
two guards with binoculars trained
on us. Suddenly we heard a noise.
Our guides said, "Here it comes" ,"
and from q field behind the from
tier came q little scout plane which
went back and forth while we were
there.
To sum up, here is what the Rus
sian frontier consists ola plowed
field, patrol with sentries and
police dogs. watch towers, behind
them landing fields with scout
planes and, finally, to make the
frontier absolutely vacuum sealed,
particularly at night. an electric
fence. If you touch that at night,
the spark causes big tlare and
the guards come running.
According to the peasants that
Is great game. They still have
their good sense OF humor and they
lie in the bushes and watch the
flashes. Then the guards come run
ming and shout, Death to the
traitors who want to leave for Slo-
vakia." All too often 1t is only
a hapless deer or rabbit. The peas
ants think that is an enormous
joke.