The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1955-03-18

LOS ANGELES - NC1 -
Michael Zellner came home
last week from nearly 10 years
in communist captivity to the
family that once had given
him up for dead. For they
knew he had been sent to
Europe's graveyard the
slave camps of the Soviet
Union.
His face was Scared from beat
ings by the MVD, Russia's secret
police, and his memory was scared
with the horror of Soviet prison
life.
But his heart was filled with Joy
and his eyes welled with tears as
he looked about him at his wife,
his son, daughter, and sonin-law.
He was home at last, beginning q
new life in a white California stuc-
co here in Los Angeles.
He had not seen his family since
the day in 1914, when he had been
taken from his home in Hungary
by the Russians and placed aboard
a sealed train headed for the Sow
ct Union and slavery.
my father wss 3. when the
Russians took him." reeounted
daughter Anna. II was nine
years old then and my brother
Michael was II. The Russians
took all the men from our town
between fhs ages Of IS and As,
and the women between ~ and
80"
During the period of slave labor
in Russia, Michael Zellner went
down to 104 pounds. At one time,
while held in the MVW Prison in
Moscow, he was a gaunt go pounds.
what We had to eat was mostly
cabbage" he said.
Today, after 16 months of free
0Om, ne weighs lou.
Mr.. ZeIIner bears scars be-
tween his eyes and on his fem
Piles as evidence of his treatment
by fte MvD.
He has memories of 14-hour in
terrogations and solitary confine-
ment without clothes in special
cell knee-deep in ice water.
And he has memories too of the
sickening dismay at thinking he
would never see his family again.
Mr.. Zellner was photographed in
prison in a Hungarian army uni
form. The MVD told him the pic
ture was circulated throughout
Hungary to bring forth witnesses
to his alleged crimes against the
Soviet.
When no witnesses appeared Mr..
Zellner was released to a labor
camp again.
In 1850, the Russians sent him
back to Hungary which was now
under Communist rule. On arriv-
ing, Mr.. Zellner was promptly ar
rested again and placed in Hun
garian communist labor camp.
"The Hungarian communists
were worse than the Russians"
he said. "In Russia we could st
least speak German, those of Us
who were of German descent. To
speak German in the Hungarian
camp meant trouble"
After three years in this camp,
he was suddenly told he was to be
expelled from the country on the
grounds he was an ethnic German.
On Oct. 27. 1858, thin and worn, he
arrived in West Germany.
His wife and two children, mean
time, had been expelled from Hun
gary in 1916 because they were
ethnic Germans. In May of 1858
they were brought to America with
the help of War Relief Services
National Catholic Welfare Confer
ence by Mr.. Zellner's younger bro
ther.. Joseph Zellner of Los Ange-
les.
In West Germany, Michael
zelIner sought the help Of the
Church and was referred to
WRS-NcWc, which located his
family. The news that he was
alive stunned mother and chill.
dren already in California.
The past year Zellner spent in
Germany awaiting completion of
arrangements to enter the us. He
arrived here under NCWC sponsor
ship and that of his brother, con-
tractor, and will be employed as
carpenter.
Sfoeky, indestrUetibIe Mr. Zell-
ner covered conditions in Rus
sia in two matter Of fact phras-
es: THE MvD is everywhere"
and "it is q dictatorship of the
pistol"
In Hungary, he said, "the people
are given much anti-American
propaganda but are told very little
about their own troubles"
Mr.. Zellner said that under the
regime of Matyas Rakosi rs con-
centration camps in Hungary we're
filled with churchgoers. 1t was