1958-06-28 — Page 6

FRIENDS!

FEAR paralysed me. I could not speak. I could

not move. I dared not even breathe. The gun was my master and my soul cringed before it.

Fascinated and terrified I gazed at the grim, black muzzle thinking crazily: "If I watch closely enough I shall see the bullet coming to kill me."

Then suddenly a great shaggy figure hurtled between myself and the executioner. The machine-gun roared and the spell was broken.

Willem, my faithful Siberian sledge dog, had hurled himself. at the Red frontier guard. And in the split second that it took the guard to kill Willem I threw myself back into the forest from which I had come.

i had come. And as I ran 1 wept. Willem had been my sole companion for uearly 1,000 miles in my flight from a Russian slave camp.

71

In the wu years that had elapsed since I escaped from lead mine at Cape East, on ne Behring Strait, I had mort Futiful friend..

I thought more of him ton the tribesmen who inve hint To ine,

NO

I had even dreamed of taking him with me home to Munich

left the town 1 had many years before as a Welt- much ofeer.

Now he was dead, Killed he cause I hnd blundered stupidly w the Rusian- into guarda Mongolian frontier.

SLIMMING?

FIL

almlersty blindly I through the undergrowth ani reached stream which would spull the scent for any tracker dogs the Russinna might use.

I plunged in up to my whist and followed" mitt dusk, Then I hauled myself up the banks, slimbed a tree and fastened my- sell there with straps from my rucksack. And there 1 slept.

some

At dawn L awoke, rigid with cold, and called for Willem,

Then I remembered he was deal and set off once more. It was 11 days before I felt con- #dent enough to face compata- tive elvilisation again.

forest 1 enme RCFOSS

1 had rangers and told them been hired to work at a thnber Orsay, which enw comp was not for away. Without any questions they put me up for the night in their loy cabin.

Next urning: I had a steam bath, A young man

cafled

THE CHINA MAIL SATURDAY, JUNH

'Why does a Jew want

to help a German ?'

After years on the run from a Rus- stan slave camp Clemona Forail was like a hunted animal. Ho trusted, no one. In this dramatic picture Arthur Wragg shows Forell face to face with a man who said he was a friend. This is Clemens Forell's own story of that atrango encounter.

Clemens Forelle escapa story u told by J, H. Bauer în “As Par

As My Fest will Carry Me" (Deutsch, 151.).

to

But Mihail,

iny horror, decided to show me on my way, We walked in allence for about a quarter of an hour and then he said quietly to me: "You'ro no Tussian. You're Germ. South German, in fact. Probably

Mihait poured bucket of water on hot tiles and I stood there naked, relaxed, almost happy.

Suddenly I noticed Mihail studying my spare frame. "Been

mining?" he said, "I've been ," ↑ said "shortly. Tyrol." He shrugged. "You won't get -- I was no use bluffing. Wear), far in that state." The tone of y I said: "My fully came from his voice scared me. I felt sure the Tyrol. What about it?" this young man had guessed my secret. Maybe he was polico spy... Í dreided to leave as oulckly as possible.

"Only this," said Mihail, "My

Soviet citizen after the Revolu tion.

"Now he's a baker in Abakan, about 800 miles west of here. If you ever get that for, look him up and, he may be able to help you. His name is Leopolit Messmer and his shop is in, the Street of the October Revolu- tion.'

I

I was kirangely moved, had travelled over 2,500 miles alnge I had slunk away from the lead mine and, this was the Brat, time anyone had, over given me the name and add

ress, of someone who wourd lig, me.

After a time the wilderness faded. I came to farms, robbed food from the fields and, after about 12 weeks, reached the cut skirts of Abakan.

I set out once more, moving along paths Mihall had told me to follow through the timber lands.

But the very next day I had to take cover ngain.

I ran up againal a forced labour camp for women.

LIKE MEN

They were dressed Just like father was born in Vienna. He men, In threadbare trousers and was taken prisoner by the lumber jackets, and yet they femining Russians in 1914 and beenmy, a were still typically.

They could not stop talking.

Although they had to work hard, chopping wood, inside the barbed-wire fences of the compi their choller was endless.

the real thirst-

quencher!

7up

Faxinated. I crouched, in the undergrowth latening to them.

Once something made them al laugh and tears came to my eyes. So people could still taught. Thal evening the prisoners were herded Indoors. The lights went un in their huts and once more I heard snatchos of con- versation.

It was like a dream. Here was proof that the world of men and

and warmth. women, nughter sill existed. And yet I could be

no part of it.

FERDINAND

1966.

-but I smell

a trap

3.000 MILES

OF PERIL-NOW

EVERY MAN

WAS AN ENEMY

I am also a Jew I hate them,

and therefore I should hate any German,

But by the time it was com- eterk and scrambled on lo pletely dark alt sentiment van- freight train that was going

west, ished.

fcrept into the camp, forced n window with my axe and plundered a food store,

Then I Was off again

marching.... marching... marching.

TERRIFIED Leopold Messner's shop was He opened a modest building. the door himself and invited me in when I said that I had message from his son.

"Butler is dead--and now For three weeks I lay low In that train, as it clunked. and Stalin is persecuting us." shuddered its way across Russia.

A housekeeper lald a magnis When I reached Novo-Kaso- ficent meal before us and the linsk, on the Aral Sea, I jumped Jew said: "Please eat what you down and alouched to the bazaar like and as much as you like. to buy some food.

You are my guesi.”

And as I ate hungrily, he told fantastic escape about o organisation that is operating today right under the noses of the Soviet secret police.

I had inished mỹ shopping End was swallowing a vodkrä when I heard a volee that sent a chlil down my spine.

A man whispered: "Hey, you! Come with me."

drink. round

Slowly Anished my But when I told him I was But I didn't turn an esenped prisoner from Cape because the man had spoken in East, he began to tremble. I

German. lensed and prepared could see he was terrified

to fight my way out of a trap.

"I can't help you," he stam.

"It's mered,

too dangerous. You can't stay here. Look-take these clothes and go."

I took the clothes, without word ut thanks. I felt only a burnitu contempl for This frightened tle baker would not help a fellow-country- man in peril.

who

"Yes, incan you. Come with me."

Slowly I turned, as if I were looking round the bazaar, I caw a small man standing close to me. He seemed to be alone.

"I'm sorry," I said in Russian,

me

GUERILLA

It spreads from the

Lo escape across

"In Uriah you will go to Mihail Ivanovitsch Blatin, 42, Stranskaya Avenue. Your code word, is 'Starscboy","

I thanked him and left. And, an walked away, "all the mistust that had nesrod_my mind since my estapo surgeil up within me.

"He's a Jew," I told myself. "He must be trying to trick me, And now all this nourense about Urlask...."

I forgot his bospitality, his gifts, the way to had sheltered I headed south for the Iranian border, turning my back on Urlask

me.

STARVING

That was in February, 1952, two years and four months after my escape. In June I was back in Novo-Hasalinek, knocking at the Armenian Jew's door,

My clothes wore in taiters. I was starving, I had reached the frontier and had. found ft black with troops, thick with walch- towers. I had barely escaped with my life.

Calmly, the Jew brought me into his house. I told him what had happened. My apologies tumbled out.

bad 1 feeling you wouldn't scoept my word." ha said. "Now let's get you t again."

That took three weeks. Again I thanked my friend--and this time I slowed away on a freight train heading north for Urlask and Mihail Ivanevllsch Slatin,

He ved in- tumble-down tenement that smelled of garlic And he questioned and swell me' for half an hour before ho was satisfed that I was not a Sevlet agent.

Then he said: "Your next slop Is the Klara-Zetkin vegetable

the on

qutskirts ok miles south-west of here. The Aleksandrov-Gay. about 150

Password 'Starschoy."

Iranian farm

the Soviet.

frontier as far as the Ukraine and White Russia. At this very moment it is heiping poor devils

border,

And

carrying on a the guerilla campaign against Russian Army attacking bar racks, dislocating communica Hons, needling where it hurts moot.

It Is

is

the

same-

I went, to the market lo buy a box of matches. And, there I loltered for a while, though all my instincts told me I should be on my way.

INSTINCTS

My Instineta were right. Sons "I don't speak your langunge.” These gallant partlean-they I realised I was being followed are known as the Kulaldare by a girl in her late twention

down- several A pair of piercing blue eyes lying

I was sure she was a police spy, Russian

I twisted and turned up and From Abakan F headed for gazed at me from a keen, Jowish divislam,

It was lace.

down ske streela and, thought I The Iranian border,

"It's Germon, the same For 10 days I lived with that had lost her. Thon I saw her hundreds of miles lo. to as yours," he said, "I want to Armenian Jew. Rest and good coming towards me, blindly, us south-west, but it was safer help you."

food bull up my strength. If I wasn't there. than Mouzolla.

I decided on a plan which I felt sure would help me travel molesti. I travelled un-

ashamedly as a beggar.

I shuifted from town to town, dragging a home-made sledge behind me. I was a whining. tottering scarecrow, whom, no- body knew and nobody wanted to know.

"I HATE THEM'

I had fallen for the oldest the trick in the game.

I had been

Clothes, provided by my host,

Before I could get out of her made me look elvilised again.

way she bumped right into me And, when he was satisfied and apologised in German, I studied him and decide! I that I was, quite At, he told me Automatically the German re- could kill him easily if he s plans.

sponse bitic sprang from my becamu, troublesome. Then I "You will travet by train to lips. followed him without a word to Urlesk, a couple of hundred

miles to the north the cutskirts of the town,

We stopped at a shabby house. Carpion Sca..........”

found

furnished I gasped. "But I'm heading for luxuriously. I sank into a huge the Iranian border!" Hitching and

acked rudely;

signed walking and arm-chale and

pallently. begging. I reached Uspenski, "Why does a Jew want to help know," he said. "But it is Im- about 800 miles from Abakun. & German?"

possible to cross the frontier this There-for now I had no "I

"My country is ruled to go round it....and you w!! scruples-1 robbed 1,100 roubles simply Armenian," he said side of the sea. You will have

railway booking offee by The Soviets and therefore I have to trust me,

frbin a

MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN

IN THE FOREST OF

∙HANS ON-

| JAMI'S HAIR~ A MULE IN THE AIRT

The Jew ushered me in and I "North of the Caspian Sea?" trapped by a slip of a girl.

JC

was

By Mik

By Lee Falk and Phil Davla

WHAT'S OUR

RUNNING --CHASING

SOMETHING!

NEAR BY A HUGE

WATERFRONT FIRE-

BIG BOY,

DOING NOW 7

JAMI'S CHASING

FIRE ENGINES!

"I

NEXT WEEK:

I got over the border and am By a dramatic twist of fate.

arrested as a Soviet spy,

quick

delivery!

AIR CARGO BY

SWISSAIR

Nothing does it like Seven-Up

JOHNNY HAZARD

YOUR HIGHNESS THESE PEOPLE HAVE COME TO NERISTAN TO INTERVIEW YOU AND REPORT YOUR POLITICAL VIEWS TO THEIR -

WESTERN PARTISANS!

MAY VIEWS ARE WELL KNOWN, CHU-LING! I ́HAVE NO VĖSIRE, TO BE INTERVIEWED!:

PERHAPS IT WOULD BE ADYMANLE TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEY SEEKI "IT WILL PUT TO KESTANY DOUSTS' THE WESTERN POTERS MAY. HAVE (ARSARTANG YOUR FRIENDSHIP FOR THE CHINESE PEOPLE'S REPUBLICI

VERY WELL... IF YOU

„WISH?

By, Frank, Robbins

"GOODLAND NOW. 'MAY 1 SUGGEST YOU RETIRE AND PREPARE. YOUR THOUGHTS FOR THE MORNINGT,

ZOH, BROTHERS THAT GUYS A WALKING ZOMBIE! HE'S NOT KONUNG THE NEPISTÁN, GOVERNMENT.N THIS. "JOKER CHU-LING*15. DOING IT FOR HIM?

SHEAFFERS “SNORKEL"

AUSTIN!

THE CAR

for your

HOME LEAVE

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