GESTAPO VICTIM

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 May 1939, Page 9

GESTAPO VICTIM

VIENNA POLICE OFFICER MADE, TO SWEEP ROADS. An ex-sergeant of the Vienna police, who pleaded guilty at Hove, Sussex, to landing in England without permission, told through an interpreter how he was smuggled over after he had been arrested by the Gestapo (Nazi Secret Police), and had served in a concentration camp. The man, Leon Filip Drexlern, aged--41, was allowed bail on his own security of £2OO and two others of £lOO each, and the case was adjourned. Chief Constable Hillier stated that on March 13, the Rev K. Fausner, of Hove, brought Drexlern to the police station and said that he had been smuggled into England. Drexlern explained, through an interpreter, that after Schuschnigg was put out of office he was deprived of his police rank and became a road sweeper.

At the station, as he was saying farewell to his wife, who was leaving for England, he was arrested by the secret police, the Gestapo, “for no reason at all.” He was released after six weeks and then re-arrested. When released again he had to sign a paper that he would leave Austria within two weeks. “I walked to Antwerp,” he said, “and I went to a refugee committee, where I was given a meal. I told a man I wanted to get to England to see my wife, and then we wanted to go to America, I paid the man all the money I had —1,000 francs.” “After reaching England I was rowed ashore in a small boat.” Mr Max A. Alder, for Drexlern, stated that the only crime the man had committed was that he happened to be what is known as non-Aryan. Arrangements were being made in America foi Drexlern arid his wife to go to relatives there, and he suggested an adjournment so that these arrangements could be completed.