POMEZI, Czechoslovakia, Nov. 5, 1989 (UPI) - East Germans taking advantage of a temporary ease on travel restrictions poured across the Czech-West German border Sunday by train, bus and car and the East Berlin mayor said a proposal for permanent travel laws would be published Monday.
Blocked by the Berlin Wall from traveling directly to West Germany, thousands of East German refugees waited in lines that stretched as long as six miles at the five highway crossings between Czechoslovakia and West Germany.
About 200 cars an hour were crossing the border, West German police said.
''It's bad that all these young people are leaving,'' said Manfred Pfotzner, an East German Communist Party member who dropped off his 25-year-old son at the border.
''If we succeed in pursuing things the demonstrators asked for, there will be freedom and democracy,'' he said in explaining his decision to stay.
A West German Interior Ministry spokesman reported at nightfall 12,550 refugees had crossed into Bavaria since East German leader Egon Krenz announced the temporary relaxation of travel restrictions Friday night to keep East Germans from crowding into the West German Embassy in Prague.
At Pomezi, two lines of cars flowed across the border -- the line on the right for East Germans and the faster-moving left line for West German tourists returning home from the weekend.
Shortly before 2 p.m., the flow of cars was stopped at a pre-check point and police directed the West Germans into the priority line.
A spokesman at the West German Embassy in Prague said a traffic jam created by curiosity seekers on the West German side of the border was also causing delays.
Many of the East Germans were smiling as they waited to cross the border, but many others appeared glum and apprehensive, especially when the line was halted.
One man who arrived by taxi with his wife and three small children said they did not decide to leavey until Sunday morning.
''We talked about it the whole night and in the morning we made a decision,'' he said. They carried one small suitcase which they said contained ''things for the children,'' plus a couple of bedpacks.
In many cars, children played games in the back seats. Some people carried only overnight bags, others toted as much as they could carry. Many were dropped off by taxis or relatives and walked across the border unhindered, including one family pushing a baby carriage.
They fled despite an appeal by Krenz to be patient and wait for the changes his reforms, including a law allowing free travel abroad, would bring.
East Berlin Mayor Erhard Krack told an East Berlin meeting held to discuss reform Sunday that the text of the draft travel law will be published Monday, West German television reported. The proposal is expected to be introduced into the parliament Wednesday.
The law will reportedly allow East Germans who left the country illegally to return without punishment, but there was no indication that and other reforms would induce East Germans to stay.
By 4 a.m. Sunday, 8,920 had entered West Germany -- 6,459 in six special trains from Prague, 2,277 in automobiles, and 184 in buses.
They kept coming in a steady stream.
In Prague, about 2,000 more East Germans entered the West German Embassy Sunday before leaving on special trains to West Germany. The embassy was finally emptied by early evening as the last group of 500 waited for a train at the railway station, West German television reported.
Another 596 refugees arrived in West Germany from Hungary, which relaxed its border restrictions in August. And about 400 were in Warsaw waiting for the West German Embassy to arrange transportation to West Germany.
The new arrivals raised the total number of East German refugees since August to about 80,000.
West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in a speech Saturday indicated he thought the refugee total this year would soar to 150,000.
Egon Bahr, a West German Social Democratic leader, expressed the fear that as many as 1.4 million might come.
''We could not master such a situation, nor could the German Democratic Republic,'' Bahr said.
Emergency centers continued to spring up along the West German side of the border to house the refugees.
The consulate in Prague in an announcement carried Friday by the official ADN news agency said the direct travel from Czechoslovakia was temporary and would remain in effect until new East German travel laws are passed.
