Train carries 1000 to West

Press, 6 October 1989, Page 8

Train carries 1000 to West

NZPA-Reuter Hof Some 1000 East Germans arrived in Hof, Bavaria, yesterday, the first in a new wave of refugees from West Germany’s Embassy in Prague, Czechoslovakia. Their train was more than five hours late.

Refugees said East German police along the track had held back disillusioned residents trying to jump on board for a ride out of the hard-line Communist state to the West. “The train was* stopped many times. Why, we don’t know. They would not explain to us,” Frank Kibat, aged 22, a bricklayer from Brandenburg,

said. A West German border police account, which the Interior Ministry could not confirm, said East German would-be emigrants had blocked the track and that some had been injured. Refugees confirmed reports from travellers that the police occupied stretches of track where the refugee trains would have to slow down, such as bridges and stations. “All the railway stations we passed were completely empty of civilians,” said Mr Kibat’s wife, Heike, aged 19. “We saw hundreds of police in the stations along the route.”

Peter Friebel, aged 28, a truck driver from East Berlin, said: “We saw many people being pushed back on the streets by police as we pulled into stations and went slowly through them.” West German officials said the carriages had been sealed in Prague, apparently to stop others jumping aboard as the trains crossed East German territory on their way west. But in Hof the doors swung open, refugees held up their fingers in V-for-Victory signs, screamed out their relief, shook their fists in exultation and wept with joy.