Britons, Americans Still Held By Russia

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27695, 27 June 1955, Page 11

Britons, Americans Still Held By Russia

(Rec. 8 p in.) WIENER NEUSTADT (Austria), June 25. Austrian prisoners of war and internees freed by Russia today told of more Britons and Americans in Soviet prisons and forced labour camps. The prisoners mentioned a British soldier named Kelly, a Charles Cathman, and a Major Lesters, said to be a Londoner kidnapped from Styria, in Austria. Four other Britons in Soviet hands included Mrs Mary May, a Londoner, who was last seen in Abis. in the Arctic Circle, in December, 1954, when she was taken from the camp, and Lieutenant Atchley, from Manchester, who was kidnapped in Berlin in 1946 and who was last seen in 1953. Five Americans were named, including Colonel Jack Cerny, who is known to have been at Baden in 1949, and Captain Sydney Ray Sparks, who was kidnapped in Berlin in 1950. The prisoners said they met a number of Frenchmen and two German lieutenant-generals, von Bentivegny and Bibenbrock. They added that several Japanese were recently moved from camps near the Austrians to an unknown destination. In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said Britain would make further

representations to Russia as the result of the naming by the newly-released Austrians of Eritons imprisoned in Soviet camps. The spokesman said the names of Major Lesters. Lieutenant Atchley, and Charles Cathman were new. and further investigations to identify them would take place before representations were made. He added that the others named already had been subject either to representations or inquiries to Russia without “any conclusive reply.” The group of 186 men and women which returned today is officially the last to arrive from the Soviet Union until after the withdrawal of Allied troops from Austria, when a number of Austrians condemned as war criminals will be returned. Thousands of people nacked the flagdecked station area at Wiener Neustadt to greet the liberated Austrians. The Chancellor (Dr. Julius Raab), whose recent mission to Moscow helped to gain their release, was among the offi-. cials at the station. Forty-five women were among the prisoners. One of the most moving stories related by them was that of Maria Auer, who was kidnapped by Soviet officers in 1949. when she was pregnant. She gave birth to a baby girl in the Soviet prison at Aneunkirchen, in lower Austria, and immedi-

ately after she was removed to the Soviet Union. The baby was taken from her and she was not reunited with her child, which is now six years old. until shortly before starting back to Austria. Another woman was Margarete Ottilinger. a high official of the former Ministry of Economic Planning, who was dragged from a car by Soviet soldiers in 1948. When the prisoners arrived, their grubbv kitbags were taken from them by relatives, flowers were thrust into their hands, and they were taken along to receive a meal at a nearby inn. The waiting relatives swept aside the police cordon to greet • their longmissing sons, husbands and wives. In the crowd was a little woman of 99. supnorted bv two Red Cross nurses. She was one of the few who were not weeping. “I have already shed all my tears.” she said.