For East Bloc, a Happy--and Free--Holiday

Millions of Eastern Europeans celebrated their first free Christmas in four decades: political prisoners rejoined their families, East Germans and Czechoslovaks watched Mass on TV and Romanians listened to long-banned carols on state radio.

Crowds milled around Berlin’s newly reopened Brandenburg Gate, symbol of the division of both Germany and Europe. East Germans also watched their first Mass on television, as Pope John Paul II delivered his traditional Christmas message in 53 languages from St. Peter’s Square in Rome. Many of his remarks were aimed at Eastern Europe.

Church bells pealed across Czechoslovakia to mark the new freedoms won in a pro-democracy movement that toppled Communist leaders.

“I feel like this is a miracle,” said Ivan M. Jirous, 45, who was reunited with his family after being imprisoned for more than eight years for “subversive” acts.

On Prague’s 15th-Century Charles Bridge, young carolers sang haunting, traditional Christmas melodies. In previous years, police chased carolers from the broad, cobbled King’s Road.

Amid the sounds of gunfire on the streets of Bucharest were the sounds of Christmas songs and carols, broadcast by Radio Bucharest for the first time since the Communist takeover of Romania in December, 1947.

The Soviet Union’s Baltic republics enjoyed the first official Christmas holiday allowed by the Communists.

And in Bethlehem, Christians from around the world prayed at the site of Jesus’ birth, but it was a subdued Christmas overshadowed by the two-year-old Palestinian uprising in the Israeli-occupied territories.