Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.DEFECTIONS: Spring Flight
The first warm weather of spring, descending on Berlin at the Easter holidays, gave thousands of Berliners the urge to visit friends or go sightseeing in the opposite sector of their divided city. Trains between east and west operated at twice their usual capacity, and border traffic was unusually heavy. But not everyone was on a holiday jaunt. By last week 5,400 East Germans had taken advantage of the holiday crush to seek refuge in West Berlin. Defecting at the rate of 900 a day, they created the biggest mass rush to the West since the anti-Communist riots of...
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