The Visitors

The day after the big, rain-drenched Whitsuntide rally ended with torchlights and fireworks, several thousand Communist kids invaded Western Berlin. But it was not the kind of invasion that the Communists had originally planned. The kids from Eastern Germany swarmed into the free part of Berlin to stare longingly at the well-filled shopwindows, at the candy counters and the shelves of white bread. Few of the youngsters had money to buy these rare treasures, but West Berliners took them into shops and bought them food, and even clothing and shoes.

Many of the dazzled kids still kept repeating the catch-phrases which their Red leaders had drilled into their heads. One Young Pioneer, as he munched cookies and licked an ice cream cone, kept mumbling: "We have come to liberate the Western sectors from capitalism."

"It Was Very Nice." West Berlin welcomed the visitors. RIAS, the U.S. radio station in Berlin, put on a special variety show for 2,000 of the kids which included U.S. jazz and a quiz program. The winners carried off armloads of shoes, shirts, dresses, loaves of bread. Some of the youngsters were suspicious of the friendliness they encountered. The owner of a big Berlin movie theater invited the kids to come and see the show (The Dark Mirror, with Olivia de Havilland). Afterward, one 16-year-old thanked the manager: "It was very nice indeed. Yet when I come to think of it, why did you invite us? There was nothing political in the film? I've got to think it over."

At the international automobile show which recently opened in West Berlin, hundreds of youngsters stared open-mouthed at shining U.S. and other Western cars. Said one: "Can you really buy these? Aren't they just for show? If you ask about delivery, don't they, tell you, 'For export only'?"

"Goodbye to the Blue Sky." Hundreds of the youngsters announced that they did not want to go back to the Eastern zone, jammed into refugee registration centers and hastily set up camps. Said one youngster, who had been caught by the Red police distributing Western propaganda leaflets but had managed to escape: "If I go back, it means goodbye to the blue sky. They'll throw me in jail for years. I couldn't stand that. What now? I'll find a way to live in Berlin."

Others decided to take their chances and go back to the Eastern zone. They sneaked back across the border at night, but the People's Police were ready for them. The cops promptly pounced on the kids, took away their FDJ membership cards and confiscated all the gifts they had brought with them from the West--the shoes, the candy, and the white bread.

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