No. 300,000

On Dec. 9, as the Red Berliner Zeitung trumpeted pridefully that East zone Christmas "gift tables will be more richly covered than ever before," 75-year-old Karl Meier bleakly shook his head, packed whatever he could into inconspicuous bundles and creaked furtively across the boundary into West Berlin. Herr Meier, a pensioned railwayman, thereby achieved a statistical distinction: he was the 300,000th refugee to escape to West Berlin in 1953, the biggest year of flight since World War II. The refugee rollcall for the preceding four years:

1949--129,000

1950--197,000

1951--165,000

1952--182,000

What makes a refugee run? Since July 1, reported West Berlin officials, 23,421 fled for political reasons; 36,124 for "humanity" reasons, e.g., being ordered into uranium mines; 14,939 were youths under 25 who had no homes or were dodging the VOPO (People's Police) draft.

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