The Hard-Currency Girls

The tall, ponytailed blonde stood nervously at the witness stand while a bearded judge in black robes glowered at her from the bench. The interrogation began.

Judge: "What is your profession?"

Blonde (hesitating): "I'm employed in a State pastry plant."

Judge (to the court stenographer):

"Put her down as a physical worker [the Polish term for blue-collar worker]." Then, returning to the witness: "Have you indulged in debauchery?"

Blonde: "Not since August 1972."

Judge: "How long had you engaged in debauchery?"

Blonde (breaking into tears): "Five years."

Judge: "Pull yourself together. Why did you stop?"

Blonde: "I couldn't continue working because I didn't have any more money to pay off the porters at the Europejski Hotel."

Thus the tone was set for an unusual trial that opened last week in Chamber 232 of Warsaw's main courthouse. The unhappy ex-hooker was one of 17 active or retired prostitutes scheduled to appear in the case, which will last at least a month. The girls, as it happens, are not on trial but are witnesses for the prosecution. The state has called on them to testify against nine bellhops and doormen who are charged with shaking down prostitutes prospecting for customers at Warsaw's most expensive hotel, the Europejski.

The trial brings into rare public focus the strange status of prostitution in Poland and other East European countries. Officially it does not exist. According to Communist dogma, the world's oldest profession is an evil peculiar to capitalism and has no appeal in a socialist state. In fact, prostitution flourishes in many parts of the East bloc, and nowhere is it more evident than in the big-city hotels frequented by Westerners.

The bars of the Alcron and the Yalta in Prague are notorious hunting grounds for the freelance free-enterprisers. At the Intercontinental in Bucharest, the girls sometimes cruise for clients in the elevators. At Warsaw's Europejski they are even more aggressive. Last May, during President Nixon's visit to Warsaw, two white-haired British correspondents were literally chased to their rooms by a bevy of miniskirted whores who spent hours unsuccessfully banging on their doors and bellowing entreaties in basic English.

Such open soliciting suggests tolerance, if not encouragement, by the authorities. There are two plausible reasons why the girls are allowed to continue their trade. One is that Western customers pay in dollars or Deutsche Marks, which makes the hotel hookers valuable sources of foreign exchange (thereby earning them the nickname of "hard-currency girls"). The other reason is that some prostitutes almost certainly provide information about their clients to the police.

A fascinating fragment of testimony in the Warsaw trial established that there is at least some spirit of cooperation between Polish officialdom and prostitutes working the Europejski. A redhead testified that last year one of the accused doormen refused to let a group of harlots into the hotel unless each paid him 100 zloties ($5). She said that one of the girls got angry and made a telephone call. "Then a lady from the Interior Ministry [which runs the Polish secret police] came over to the hotel and took care of everything," the girl said. "Did the doorman let you in after that?" the judge inquired. "Yes," answered the witness, "for a while."

According to the trial indictment, the doorman and the other eight defendants regularly collected up to 100 zloties from prostitutes as a sort of entrance fee to the hotel's cafe and up to 500 zloties for entry into the hotel itself. For "systematically demanding bribes," the defendants face maximum sentences of 10 years in prison. Meanwhile, life goes on at Warsaw's leading hotels. At the Bristol last week, TIME Correspondent Strobe Talbott reports, he was propositioned three times by phone from the lobby before he had time to unpack in his room.

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