COLUMN ONE : New Wall of Despair in Europe : Even as the Iron Curtain has been lifted, the West is erecting its own barrier--this one to bar migrating poor from Romania, Hungary and other nations.

Soldiers slung with automatic rifles and night-vision glasses stand watch over frozen vineyards. The skeletal vines, trussed into gnarled bundles, rock noiselessly in the wind of a moonlit night.

A rustle in the frosty underbrush draws a beam of light, illuminating three sets of startled eyes.

A flash of fear and tension grips the watchers but quickly eases into a nervous laugh. This time, the eerie stillness has been disturbed by wild hares.

Every night, along Austria’s newly fortified frontier with Hungary, army patrols stalk the border to deter East Europeans in their clandestine attempts to reach the West.

In contrast to the welcome accorded Hungarians who forded the same swamps and tramped the same fields 34 years ago, after their 1956 revolt against communism failed, those intercepted now are pushed back into Hungary or held in jails pending deportation.

Only a year after the fall of Communist dictatorships allowed Eastern Europe to lift the Iron Curtain, the West has erected a new barrier to keep out the migrating poor. Hungarian Prime Minister Jozsef Antall calls it the “Welfare Wall.”

An East European pilgrimage is marching across Europe, filling refugee camps and draining the resources of charities that have traditionally aided those taking flight.

At least 100,000, mostly Romanians, have migrated from Eastern Europe this year, and some European governments have been galvanized into defensive action by the threat of a veritable invasion once Soviet citizens are allowed to travel early next year.

Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Germany invoked visa requirements for East Europeans, leaving only Hungary with open borders through which the migrating Romanians and Bulgarians can pass. Budapest has been reluctant to erect financial barriers to keep out the Romanians, many of whom are ethnic Hungarians fleeing repression and conflict in Transylvania. That has encouraged the development of a migrant corridor through Hungary for those seeking the easiest access to the West.

With hope for improvement in the Soviet Union disappearing faster than its food stocks, the exodus from that country could reach 8 million in 1991, Austrian Interior Minister Franz Loeschnak warned in early December.

That would constitute a migration of unprecedented proportions and threaten living standards for all of Western Europe.

“We need a Europe-wide political solution to this problem,” said Lt. Col. Wilhelm Zsifkovits, unit commander of the 4,000 border troops that Austria has deployed to deter illegal crossings. “What would we do if 20 million Russians decided to leave? Austria has a good reputation as a land of refuge but how could we deal with such numbers?”

Austria, a nation of less than 8 million, has long served as a corridor between East and West. Since 1945, it has granted asylum to 2.5 million refugees.

Most eventually moved on--to the United States, Canada, Australia and other lands of opportunity that once welcomed new settlers with open arms.

Now, consumed with their own economic crises and inundated with immigrants from other parts of the world, these traditional havens for European refugees have all but closed the door.

More than 18,000 refugees are being cared for in Austria while they pursue slim chances of emigrating elsewhere.

Unable to cope with the mounting arrivals, Austria earlier this year invoked new visa regulations requiring East Europeans to show that they can pay for their stay.

The curbs prompted a flood of illegal entries as impoverished Romanians, Bulgarians and others simply crossed out of view of the handful of border checkpoints. Vienna deployed the special army patrol Sept. 4. Since then, thousands have been intercepted trying to slip in under cover of darkness.

Those who ask for political asylum are entitled under Austrian law to a court hearing that usually takes months to arrange. In the meantime, they are provided with shelter and money to buy food and clothing.

“I hope I can stay,” said a 19-year-old Bulgarian, snug in a new down parka, at a refugee center south of Vienna. Speaking with determined precision in the German that he has learned in three months, the former Sofia University math student admitted that his claim to asylum was tenuous. But he added, “If I didn’t have hope, I would have absolutely nothing.”

Few of the destitute migrants know the rules about refugee status. Most arrested at the border readily admit that they are seeking a chance at eventual prosperity, rather than claiming repression, which would ensure a temporary stay. They are usually sent back to Hungary within a few hours.

Some jettison their documents while attempting to evade capture, as those without identification are held in jail until new papers can be arranged.

“Life is better in our jails than it is for many of these people, as with us there is always heat and three meals a day,” Zsifkovits said.

The border patrols and summary deportations have slowed illegal immigration to a trickle and inflicted Austrians with a moral struggle over their role in erecting a new wall between East and West.

“I believe they have the right to seek a better life,” said Karl Edwell, a barkeeper and native of Andau, a quiet border town in the swampy farm region east of Neusiedler Lake.

“It’s not true that a democracy has been created in Romania. It will take at least a generation to overcome that kind of dictatorship,” Edwell said. “For the immediate future, these people have no prospects.”

Edwell recalled a different Andau in 1956, when nearly every family collaborated to spirit Hungarians away from the Soviet invasion that crushed their short-lived revolt. It was this village that inspired the title of American author James A. Michener’s “The Bridge at Andau,” a novel about the uprising and exodus.

“There was a kind of euphoria then. You can’t compare the situation today. In 1956, every school and inn was opened to them, and we made room in our own homes,” Edwell, who was 15 at the time, recalled.

Asked why Austrians have become unwilling to accept the East Europeans who are now on the run, he replied in a voice filled with regret.

“People then had less to protect. It was too soon after the war and we all had very little,” observed Edwell. “I fear the current attitude has a lot to do with crime, which has truly become a problem. But how can we call it crime when a Romanian is forced to steal so he can survive?”

The border province of Burgenland has suffered a fourfold increase in pilferage and break-ins this year, most blamed on refugees who arrive starving and poorly dressed.

“In the beginning, what we were doing was not understood by many people, because as a small country on the edge of the East Bloc, we had always stood ready to help those trying to escape,” said Walter Thurner, police chief in the village of Schattendorf, a favorite spot for illegal crossings because of its proximity to a railway route. “Because of the rise in crime, people are now behind us.”

Migrants stow away on trains as close to the border as they dare, then hurl themselves into the remote countryside in an attempt to enter undetected. Soldiers are concentrated at the major highway and railroad crossings, making less accessible regions like Neusiedler and the mountainous border with Yugoslavia the more likely paths to success.

The migration has given rise to a new black market on both sides of the East-West divide: Hungarians and Austrians familiar with border conditions sell their services as guides like the coyotes on the U.S.-Mexican border.

The wave of illegal immigrants has also been bolstered by the eagerness of some Austrian employers to take advantage of able workers willing to accept a fraction of the wage an Austrian would demand.

Outside a shelter in Traiskirchen, where 2,500 refugees await word on requested asylum, employers cruising in Volvos and Mercedes-Benzes roll around the perimeter for cheap labor.

Anton Harabagiu, who fled Timisoara in Romania four months ago, said he feared that he would be deported soon and was preparing to flee Traiskirchen as soon as he finds a job. In an icy rain outside the shelter, he used hand signals to discuss proposals for work in the growing shadow economy.

The Austrian government announced in late November that it planned to forcibly deport 7,000 Romanians denied asylum. The attempt was thwarted, however, by transport officials who refused to get involved.

Austrian Airlines declined to carry the expellees to Bucharest. Invoking their well-known advertising slogan, the national carrier issued a statement advising that “the Friendly Airline doesn’t transport those who have to be forced on board.”

Hungarian officials have also resisted Austrian efforts to send the Romanians home by train or bus through Hungary.

“They know that by the time the buses got to the Romanian border they would be empty,” Zsifkovits said.

Moreover, Austrian church and charity groups objected to the government’s plan and in early December won the promise of a moratorium on deportations until a comprehensive plan for dealing with the refugee crisis is worked out.

“The West has to work together to solve this problem, because our well-being is collectively threatened,” said Karl Fantl, an Austrian scientist, as he watched the border patrol from an eastbound train. “It’s sad to say, but I think Western Europe may never again live as well as it does today.”