POLAND: Home for Christmas

In 1947, after seven years of service in the British Royal Air Force, Paul Bernard Grieger decided to visit his parents in Poland for Christmas. It turned out to be a long visit. Two weeks ago Grieger slipped into West Berlin with a hair-raising story of his escape, and a grim account of life in the new Poland.

He had found his homeland in effect a Russian colony. When Soviet Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky was proclaimed the new commander of the Polish army (TIME, Nov. 21), Poles at first could not believe the news, thought it a joke. Later, when Rokossovsky...

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