South Bend, Saturday, September 2, 1989
Seeking Refuge
A wave of people from the East has again been set in motion, seeking refuge in the West. At this time, thousands of people from East Germany are fleeing through Hungary to Austria. Since Hungary lifted the Iron Curtain in May, it has become easier to cross the border to Austria. From Austria, refugees are brought by train and buses to West Germany, where they can automatically claim citizenship. Over this weekend, about 15,000 to 20,000 people are expected to cross the Austrian border. They are citizens of the German Democratic Republic or East Germany, who are vacationing in Hungary and are now taking advantage of the opportunity to flee to the West.
September 10, 1989
The Way to Freedom
Today, shortly after midnight local time, the Hungarian government allowed 5,000 East German refugees, who had been retained in camps in Budapest, to leave. They did not wait until dawn, but got moving right away to the Austrian border, their faces still marked by fear and despair. With the time difference, these pictures could be seen in America on the 10 p.m. evening news. Heart-wrenching scenes have played out, which prove once more what freedom means when you don’t have it.
What is happening these days, is the largest exodus from East Germany since the Berlin Wall was erected 28 years ago. By its intransigence not to allow reforms to take place, the East German regime is pushing itself into isolation within the East Bloc.
South Bend, September 30, 1989
The exodus from East Germany is widening and becoming more grotesque. Presently, about 3,000 East German refugees are waiting in cramped conditions in the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Prague for permission to depart to the West. Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher was able, apparently through Soviet mediation at the United Nations, to obtain permission for the East German refugees to leave Prague. In the meantime, also the Embassy of the Federal Republic in Warsaw has become an asylum for East German refugees.