SUCCESSFUL BID FOR LIBERTY

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26510, 27 August 1951, Page 7

SUCCESSFUL BID FOR LIBERTY

WELLINGTON MAN IN POTSDAM GAOL

(Rec. 8 p.m.) LONDON, August 25. A pencil stub hidden by a fellow prisoner enabled a Wellington man, Mr Frank Mumme, to return to the free world after 127 days in a Communist prison in East Germany, reports the “Sunday Dispatch.” Mr Mumme, in an exclusive interview to-day, said: “I was the fool; I discovered that eight hours after crossing the frontier, when I was arrested and accused of being a spy. “I declared myself a Communist sympathiser, but it made-no difference., For four months I have lived like a caged animal. My health is broken and my mind is still dazed, but my belief in Communism is dead.

“I am free because a young East German was rash enough to marry a West German. He was arrested and flung into my gloomy five-foot by, 10foot cell. He had a pencil stub in his shirt. Before he disappeared—where, I never found out—he gave it to me. “I scribbled on a piece of paper these words: ‘I am a prisoner in Potsdam. My name is Frank Mumme. I am a New Zealander, with a passport issued in Wellington. Can you help me, please?’ ■ “Next morning, a man smuggled the note to the British military mission in Potsdam. A few weeks later, after I had failed in an escape attempt, I heard that a British officer was inquiring about me. “Meanwhile, life became worse. I became almost resigned to death. For weeks I waited; then one day I was taken to the gaol office and forced to sign a form which meant that I was parting with all my money. Half an hour later, I was free.

“Slowly, with aching limbs, I made my way back to West Berlin. Now I am in Britain for the first time in my life. I want to find a job if I can. I shall go no more hunting for paradise. So far 'as I am concerned, paradise is right here.”