Stanford Student Letters and Memoirs

May 20, 1960

Hello folks,

Goodness- George has been to Berlin and returned and even taken another excursion- and here I am, late again. Perhaps by now you are used to this routine. At any rate, as I wrote to him only last night, he just got to see Berlin in time with that Mr. K acting up. And, frankly, I shall be very happy to greet him on June 11th in San Francisco. Somehow we will prefer to have him on this side of the "pond" and he seems to be counting the days too.

April 28th, 1960

I have a few minutes before going to the Berlin Philharmonic so will start a letter to you.

We have spent both morning and afternoon in seeing the refugee situation. We began this morning at the main reception center here in west Berlin, where the refugees come first of all after crossing the border into east Berlin and then crossing again into west Berlin.

First of all we had a very informative lecture from the director of the center, himself a refugee in 1951. Some statistics he gave were well worth repeating: Since world war 2 there have been 3.4 million refugees from east Germany, not counting those from other lands such as Latvia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland etc. Germany has a present popultion of about 54 million; of these, 13 million are refugees from somewhere behind the iron curtain- i.e. 25% of the whole population! That is a lot of people to absorb especially when three foirths had another language, customs, etc, and of, course, none of them could bring more than a suitcase or so with them, many of them not even that much, so it was also quite an economic problem and still is.

Even more interesting are the more current figures; for example, the monthly refugee flow so far this year: January 5,300; Feb. 5,900; March, 8,000; April to the 26th, 14,000. One reason for the rise since Feb. is that the Communists have put on a big push to collectivize the farms and also the handworkers etc who remain self-employed. This has, as the numbers show, driven thousands of farmers to make the very dangerous trip to Berlin to escape to the west, where they must now face the difficulty and hardship and uncertainty of starting life from scratch. The no. of farmers jumped from 200 in Jan. to 2,400 in the first three weeks of April, after the new laws came in. The phychological [psychological] importance of west Berlin as an escape valve for refugees from Communism cannot be exaggerated!

After the backgroung [background] speech we split up into groups of ten to sit in on the actual interviews given to all new refugees. These people must show good reason for having left the Communist country in order to be granted refugee status in west Germany (this preventing infiltration and also preventing the complete flooding of west Germany with refugees to house, clothe, and feed) and hence they are questioned by a committee of three former refugees to verify these reasons. We got to listen to four cases, were permitted to ask questions when we didn't understand something- this was, I thin [think], the most informative experience of the day, giving a unique insight into how Communism goes about its slow but relentless job of taking over the lives of the common people in service of the state.

May 20, 1960

Hello folks,

Goodness- George has been to Berlin and returned and even taken another excursion- and here I am, late again. Perhaps by now you are used to this routine. At any rate, as I wrote to him only last night, he just got to see Berlin in time with that Mr. K acting up. And frankly, I shall be very happy to greet him on June 11th in San Francisco. Somehow we will prefer to have him on this side of the "pond" and he seems to be counting the days too.

April 28th, 1960

I have a few minutes before going to the Berlin Philharmonic so will start a letter to you.

We have spent both morning and afternoon in seeing the refugee situation. We began this morning at the main reception center here in west Berlin, where the refugees come first of all after crossing the border into east Berlin and then crossing again into west Berlin.

First of all we had a very informative lecture from the director of the center, himself a refugee in 1951. Some statistics he gave were well worth repeating: Since world war 2 there have been 3.4 million refugees from east Germany, not counting those from other lands such as Latvia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, etc. Germany has a present popultaion of about 54 million; of these, 13 million are refugees from somewhere behind the iron curtain- i.e. 25% of the whole population! That is a lot of people to absorb especially when three foirths had another language, customs etc, and of, course, none of them could bring more than a suitcase or so with them, many of them not even that much, so it was also quite an economic problem and still is.

Even more interesting are the more current figures: for example, the monthly refugee flow so far this year: January 5,300; Feb. 5,900; March, 8,000; April to the 26th, 14,000. One reason for the rise since Feb. is that the Communists have put on a big push to collectivize the farms and also the handworkers etc who remain self-employed. This has, as the numbers show, driven thousands of farmers to make the very dangerous trip to Berlin to escape to the west, where they must now face the difficulty and hardship and uncertainty of starting life from scratch. The no. of farmers jumped from 200 in Jan. to 2,400 in the first three weeks of April, after the new laws came in. The phychological importance of west Berlin as an escape valve for refugees from Communism cannot be exaggerated!

After the background speech we split up into groups of ten to sit in on the actual interviews given to all new refugees. These people must show good reason for having left the Communist country in order to be granted refugee status in west Germany (this preventing infiltration and also preventing the complete flooding of west Germany with refugees to house, clothe, and feed) and hence they are questioned by a committee of three former refugees to verify these reasons. We got to listen to four cases, were permitted to ask questions when we didn't understand something- this was, I thin, the most informative experience of the day, giving a unique insight into how Communism goes about its slow but relentless job of taking over the lives of the common people in service of the state.

Dearest Annie and Folks

28.4 5:30 pm I have a few free minutes now before going out for the evening - this time to a concert of the Berlin Philarmonic - so I'll begin a letter to you, finish it late tonight or tomorrow morning as I have time.

We have spent both morning and afternoon in seeing the refugee situation. We began this morning at the main reception center here in West Berlin, where the refugees come first of all after crossing the border into East Berlin and then crossing again into West Berlin. A sketch might make the various geographical terms [clear?]

[sketch]

First of all we had a very informative lecture from the director of the center, himself a refugeein 1951. Some statistics he gave were well worth repeating. Since WWII there have been 3.4 million refugees from East Germany, not counting those from other lands such as Latvia, etc, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, etc. Germany has a present population of about 54 million; of these 13 million are refugees from somewhere behind the Iron Curtain - i.e. 25% of the whole population! That's a lot of people to absorb, especially when 3/4 of them had another language, customs, etc. and of course none of them could bring more than a suitcase or so with them, many of them not even that much, so it was also quite an economic problem (and still is too!). Even more interesting are the more current figures - for example the monthly refugee flow so far this year: Jan. - 5300 Feb. - 5900 Mar. - 8000 Apr. (to 4/26 only) - 14000.

Over the Easter holidays they had over 1000 every day!! One reason for the rise since February is that the communists have put on a big push to collectivize the the farms, and also the hand workers, etc who remain self employed. This has as the numbers show, driven thousands of farmers to make the very dangerous trip to Berlin to escape to the West, where they must now face the difficulty and hardship and uncertainty of starting life from scratch. The numbers of farmers jumped from 200 in January to 2400 in the first 3 weeks of April, after the new laws came in. The psychological importance of West Berlin as an escape valve for refugees from communism cannot be exaggerated!

After the background speech we split up into groups of 10 to sit in on the actual interviews given to all new refugees. These people must show good reasons for having left the communist country in order to be granted refugee status in West Germany (thus preventing infiltration, and also preventing the complete flooding of West Germany with refugees to house, clothe, feed), and hence they are questioned by a committee of 3 former refugees to verify these reasons. We got to listen to four cases, were permitted to aks questions when we didn't understand something - this was I think the most informative experience of the day, giving a unique insight into how communism goes about its slow but relentless job of taking over the lives of the common people in service of the state.

continued 4/30

The first case was a man and his grown daughter; the family had been