European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 04, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 8 a a a the stars and stripes monday february 4,1991 a masked soviet Interior ministry policeman stands guard at the police Academy in  damage in millions after lithuanian crackdown Vilnius . Apr property damage Worth $57.6 million added to the human toll of the Kremlin s crackdown on Lithuania s Independence drive officials said sunday. The Republic s economics ministry said the monthlong actions by soviet troops have damaged equipment roads buildings and cars according to lithuanian parliament spokesman Audrius Azubalis. The biggest toll in both lives and property a was incurred Jan. 13, when soviet paratroopers and tanks stormed lithuanian broadcasting facilities. A total of 14 people were killed in the assault. According to Azubalis property losses front the attack came to $28.16 million. Throughout Vilnius damage to pavement and other Public facilities was put at $4.8 million. Soviet forces occupied several buildings in the capital before the Jan. 13 assault. As a result several thousand people were thrown out of work and lost their incomes Azubalis  the troops seized a police Academy the republics main publishing Plant a newsprint warehouse and other buildings taking them away from pro Independence forces a. Lithuania is leading a Campaign by the Baltic re pub lies to regain the Independence they lost when soviet troops took control in 1940. President Mikhail Gorbachev has said Lithuania Latvia and Estonia must hold h referendum on Independence if they want to leave the Union. Quot a a. A. A. A Quot a lithuanians Are scheduled to Register their opinion on Independence in a general poll feb. 9. However it is not Clear whether Gorbachev will accept the results since it is not a formal referendum. A in another development Azubalis reported that the lithuanian prosecutor was starting to investigate Juozas jermal Vicius the ideology chief of the lithuanian communist party faction Loyal to Moscow. Jermal Vicius is affiliated with the National salvation committee a shadowy group that reportedly requested the soviet troop assault on the Vilnius broadcast Center and later proclaimed it was in Power in the Republic. Azubalis did riot say what charges jermal Vicius might face. Soviet troops continued to roam through the City in 3-Day-old joint patrols with soviet Interior ministry police. Lithuanian officials said sunday that the patrols have been particularly Active around the Headquarters of saudis a grass roots group that galvanized the republics Independence drive in 1988. No major incidents involving the patrols were reported sunday. In Moscow a poll found widespread displeasure and anxiety Over the nationwide patrols the television news service reported sunday. Fifty two percent of the respondents said they did not believe the joint patrols were necessary to combat crime the reason the military has Given for them. Fifty eight percent said they feared the pm fools would interfere with any Large rallies or demonstrations. The television news show did not say How Many people were polled or what the margin of error was. World today chernobyl May become new kind of hot spot a a Moscow apr ukrainian authorities Are offering soviet and foreign tourists a hot new ticket a tour of the radioactive contamination zone around the chernobyl reactor that blew up in 1986. All trips will begin and end with Geiger counter tests to Check the visitors exposure to radiation. If treatment at a radiological medical Center is needed it will be provided a at no extra charge a the newspaper Komsomol Skaya pravda reported saturday. The itinerary planned bythe soviet tour company kick tourist will include die a dead City of chernobyl a radioactive Wask dump at Kopachik and the Concrete a a sarcophagus built around the blown up reactor. According to official statistics 31 people died when one of the four chernobyl reactors exploded in april 1986. But the head of a ukrainian legislative commission that investigate the catastrophe has said the actual toll topped 500.quake toll rises to 500 in Pakistan Afghanistan Islamabad Pakistan apr Quot at least 200 people May have been killed in Afghanistan during last weeks earthquake Aid workers said sunday bringing to at least 500 the death toll of the powerful quake. V in Pakistan government officials said saturday that More than 300 people died and More than 500 were injured As a result of fridays quake. The official death toll in Pakistan stood at 164, although government officials said the number was at least 300 and would Likely riase As they received reports from Remote Mountain villages hardest hit by the quake. The afghan government initially said five peo pie had been killed and dozens More injured but has reported no further casualties. However Relief workers based in Pakistan said at least 200 and possibly As Many As 400 May have been killed in the quake which jolted 18 of Afghanistan a 30 provinces. The temblor measured 6.8 on the Richter  arrest 4 dealers seize 4,000 Art forgeries Stockholm Sweden apr police have confiscated 4,000 forged Art works that copied surrealist painters Joan Miro and Salvador Dali. Four Art dealers in Sweden and Denmark were arrested news reports said saturday. One curator said the Miro Market could collapse because of the forgeries. The National news Agency to in a published report quoted detective superintendent Ragnar Bergmark As saying the prints had been sold for about about $13 , others claim property in Eastern Germany by John Tagliabue the new York times Berlin a Heinz Stem was 26 when his father was dragged off from Berlin to the Buchenwald concentration Camp and a forced to sign a contract surrendering the family owned flour Mill to a German. The Mills new owner in turn lost it after world War 11, As soviet occupation officials nationalized key industries in the newly formed East Germany. Stern who was then living in Kansas City mo., managed to get his father out of Germany thanks to an affidavit signed by one sen. Harry s Truman. Now half a Century later Stern May get the Mill Back too. _ nearly four months after reunification. Germany has begun ambitious moves to restore to their former owners the Homes shops factories and land nationalized in formerly communist East Germany a process that officials say will take years. Many of those claiming property Are jews who like Stern s father were forced to surrender it in the darkest years of nazi Rule. Ltd a those were terrible times and even today i cannot believe that this All can be True Quot Stern said the other morning. He was seated in front of the 1938 contract that bears his fathers signature stripping him of ownership of the Mill. It is located in Guben near the present Day polish Frontier. In 1938, Stern left his family a 13-room apartment along the Kurfurst Tendam berlins snowiest Boulevard to work pressing pants in America. Today at age 78, he lives alone on a pension in a Berlin Home for the elderly. Forty eight family members died in the holocaust. The claims coincide with a sudden surge in the number of soviet jewish immigrants arriving in Berlin. Like Stern Many of the claimants Are elderly and have Little interest in physically recovering their property. The Mills present management installed by the communists Hopes to be bought out by a Western concern and Stern would likewise Welcome such a takeover. A purchasing grains arranging sales seeing customers a in a too old for All that a he said. A if someone would buy me out that would be  after the War West Germany restored property seized from jews to the former owners and paid compensation for lost properties in East Germany and former German lands that were ceded to Poland and Czechoslovakia. Under those arrangements Stern a brother and sister each received $16,000 that will now have to be paid Back if the Mill is restored to them. But unlike Poland and Czechoslovakia where similar re privatization is under Way Germany bowed to heavy Public pressure and ruled that All property would be restored to those who suffered losses Between Jan. 30, 1933, and May 5, 1945, on grounds of a race politics religion or philosophical  4 with the nazi seizure of Power in 1933 Many German jews sold their Homes and businesses and fled rising persecution. After 1938, jewish property owners like Sterns father were simply stripped of their property which was then sold to new  a third of prewar Germany s jewish population of about 500,000 lived in Berlin. Ron Zuriel a Berlin lawyer with Broad experience in property claims said that by far the largest number involve properties in former East Berlin