European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 10, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Schoolgirls copy slogans into their exercise books and chuckle at a cartoon of ousted communist party Boss Milos Jakes in a cultural Center crowds listen to a troupe playing slovak Folk music while children watch Tom and Jerry cartoons on to and Munch Corn on the cob sold by a cheerful Street Vendor for the first time in 20 years the newspapers contain real news and Long lines form to buy them until a few Days earlier residents of Bratislava s High Rise apartments could Only look across the Danube into Austria and into the eyes of Freedom Vienna is just an hour s drive away but to go there people had to have official permission fill in reams of forms and leave behind a close relative to guarantee their return now they just go off in the car visa requirements for Aust nans and czechoslovakian were abolished in tune for Christmas whole stretches of Fence lie uprooted in Messy coils by the Roadside North of Bratislava a Man climbers Down to the Morava River a Danube tributary that was off limits for 20 years and casts his line to fish Michal Stolar and three friends collect Christmas Trees on a Hillside two Days earlier they were among 6.000 Aust nans and czechoslovak who formed a 4vj mile human chem across the Border to celebrate the opening of the Fence solar a 30 year old geologist knows his Iron curtain intimately a Fence 2 meters 6 feet. 6 inches High then a strip with flares that went off when they were stepped on then a second Fence. 2 80 meters 9 not High there were 187 strands of wire in each Fence altogether enough wire to Circle the Earth 1 Viz times " but three months earlier a czechoslovak doctor had outwitted the Iron curtain he escaped Over it on a motorized hang glider ten Miles to the North. A Walch Tower stands abandoned next to a Gorman world War ii Bunker across the Road Josef Zapletal. 56, is repairing a Fence on the collective farm where he has worked for 25 years since the communists confiscated his private farm. The windows in Iho watchtower Are broken Zapletal says they were smashed by the guards celebrating the death of their Patch of the Iron curl am at the Hegyes Halom checkpoint on the hungarian Border guards wave lines of cars through and the duty free shop is doing brisk business crossing that Border used to take hours As cars were searched for bibles Western magazines and hidden escapees along the roads signs offer tourists rooms Lor rent churches and shops Are open a picture of Jesus is tacked to a tree and Little is left to suggest that this had once been one of the toughest communist countries in Europe Heinz Riller is a 50-year old schoolteacher and local historian in Lutzmann Burg Austria whose scrapbooks and photos now Are helping nearby hungarian scholars fill the Blanks created by communist censorship they have the same problem that my generation had after Hitler to find out what was True what really  Riller says you can t flee  in Riller s father s diary. The entry for dec 14, 1948, records the departure of Lazslo Kobor. Lutzmann Burg s Handyman Kobor returned to his Village of Zsiray. 300 Yards away in Hungary then the Fence went up and he did t come Back Lor 41 years now 60, he is Back in Lutzmann Burg mowing lawns and painting window frames in Winston Churchill s description the italian port of Trieste on the Adriatic was the Southern end of the Iron curtain Trieste became a cold War flashpoint when Yugoslavia claimed it after world War ii but the dispute was settled in 1954, Yugoslavia left the soviet bloc and the Frontier at Trieste is largely unfenced. Thousands of yugoslavs travel to Trieste to work or shop while Tri Stinis own summer houses on Yugoslavia s istrian Peninsula Europe s ideological Divide finishes at Muggia. The venetian Quarter of Trieste. An italian customs officer is puzzled by visitors coming now looking for the place where the Iron curtain ends Iron curtain he says. There s no Iron curtain  and so it is All the Way from the Adriatic to the Baltic. Winston Churchill and then president Truman doll their hats before departing for Fulton mo., where Churchill made his Iron curtain " speech. Churchill s declaration associated press from Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an Iron curtain has descended across the  so declared Winston Churchill on March 5.1946, in a speech to Westminster College in Fulton. To behind that line lie All the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe to said the wartime British prime minister had it almost right As things later turned out. The Iron curtain started at the West German port of trave Munde on the Baltic sea. About 150 Miles West of the polish port of Stettin in 1946, the division of Germany into separate Stales was not yet envisaged. Stettin now Szczecin lies near what is today the Eastern Border of East Germany Churchill did not Coin the term Iron  a British newspaper had used it the year before to define Europe s Post world War ii ideological Divide. But it was Churchill s speech that popularized it As an image of the cold War for whom the Bell tolls february 10, 1990 stars and stripes Page 15