"Mom, Dad, there's a hole in the fence to the west!" With wide eyes I pointed to the screen of our black and white television. There was a woodland there, and a crowd of people pushing open a gate and running for freedom. It was August 19, 1989, the pictures showed the "Pan-European Picnic", in which more than 600 GDR citizens crossed the Austro-Hungarian border into the West. Strange just that my parents did not pay attention to the news. "We do not care," was her curt answer.
What I did not know: that they had long since made the decision to flee Hungary. And that our new apartment was bugged by the Stasi.
It was the summer holidays 1989, I had just completed the first grade of the Polytechnic High School "Ernst Thalmann" in Mittweida Mittweida. Like the others, I tied the blue cloth of the young pioneers around my neck for the weekly banner applause. There was a strange mood in the house this summer. Almost every day, the parents said goodbye to long walks through the development area. And every time they left the apartment, they stuck a movie ticket in the door fold. When we came home one day and the card lay on the floor, they exchanged meaningful looks.
During the walks, they planned our escape from the GDR. The goal was called Hungary: For weeks, a steadily swelling stream of refugees used the favorite holiday paradise of the East Germans as a gateway to the West. Already in May, Hungarian border guards had begun to cut down the barbed wire on the border with Austria. It was rumored that the shooting order was also suspended.
Alone or in groups, people hit the green border. In the "West TV" was seen how over 100 people in the Federal Republic of Germany embassy in Budapest endured. My parents wanted to seize the opportunity before head of state Erich Honecker would also block the way to Hungary.
Secretly Hungarian hauled
With it was a friendly couple, who owned a Russian Lada car. Apparently, my parents had rented a holiday apartment on the Danube Bend and bought a return ticket to Dresden. After an operation in June, my father had a sick leave longer - in the time gained he punched Hungarian.
My father was 35 at the time, had just completed his doctorate and was an assistant at the engineering college in Mittweida. My mother worked there in accounting. The decision to flee the GDR had matured over the years. Both resisted the ubiquitous propaganda that began in kindergarten. After attending a concert in a church, superiors had made it clear to them that they did not like to see such things. From an escape they promised themselves a better, free life, without paternalism and patronizing.
photo gallery
15 pictures
East German escape over Hungary: search for the hole in the fenceMy last memory of the GDR is - as clichéd as it may sound - the image of the empty shelves in a department store. I remember we wanted to buy some bread. There was not one more this afternoon.
Our mother recorded the events of our escape in a red leatherette album. Their chronicle begins on August 21, 1989, a Monday: "11.00 clock drive from Mittweida to Hainichen." There we met our escapees: Claudia, a colleague of my mother with a blonde perm, and her friend Uwe, a mechanic with gold chains and a dark mustache.
Surprise in the forest
Towards evening our Lada reached the border with Czechoslovakia. The Borderman asked a few questions, shining a flashlight inside the car and raising the turnpike. While driving away, we heard him say laconically to his colleague: "We will not see them again."
In the early morning hours we passed the border with the Hungarian People's Republic. But instead of going to Budapest, we hit a hook and headed directly to Austria. The plan was to try the "green border" first. Should a border guard get in our way, Uwe wanted to chase him away by honking and fading.
In a village in front of the border we drove past a lit-up minibus B1000 of the Hungarian army - now we had been registered for sure. Then the path led through a forest. Suddenly a uniformed man with machine gun blocked the way ... and Uwe stopped. Thank God - as we later learned, was shot in the same night in Hungary, a GDR citizen attempting to escape.
Our driver cranked down the window and said he had lost his way. Where would you go to Lake Balaton? The uniformed man did not find that amusing. He ordered the engine to stop and stated that we had been arrested. Only now did my parents tell me that we were very much in search of the "hole in the fence".
"Man, give gas!"
Because nobody knew where we were, my father used a pee break for orientation. Excited, he returned to the car: Not ten meters in front of us was a double barbed wire fence, which looked just like the border fortifications on TV - and the dirt road was free. We were right on the border with Austria!
"Man, give gas!" Hissed my father. Uwe hesitated for a moment, then turned the ignition key ... silence followed. The battery had given up the ghost. The misery of the East haunted us to the last few meters.
In the meantime, a minibus had arrived. We were taken to a barracks, where a disgruntled commander expected us. Because of us, he had been taken out of bed in the middle of the night. He was always like that, he complained, for weeks he had not seen his family. That my father spoke a few words Hungarian, broke the ice a little. We were advised to apply to the consulate of Germany for a passport and brought us back to the broken Lada.
It was getting dark by now. The fields on the Austrian side were clearly visible.
The temptation was too big. With an innocent air, we started to push the car - after all, the battery was dead. No one knows what the border guards may have thought when they saw four ossis pushing their broken lada towards Austria at dawn with the courage of desperation. Of course we did not reach a meter. The car had to turn around, then the frontiers pushed us. The engine was running. On to Budapest!
Fear of spies
The garden of the church "To the Holy Family" in Budapest-Zugliget resembled a huge campsite. More than 500 people camped on the completely overcrowded terrain. Pastor Imre Kozma had made his rectory and garden available to Malteser Hilfsdienst, who set up a refugee camp there. "Overwhelming impression, relief, tears," my mother noted. The presence of the Maltese gave us a sense of security and hope.
We had learned from the reception center by a note at the entrance to the German Embassy. She had closed her doors the night before, overwhelmed by the rush of those who wanted to leave the country.
Now the embassy had set up an office in a tent in front of the Zugligetkirche. An employee handed us a passport application and advised to stay in groups and take care of me. The Stasi also had its informers in Hungary. Because the Zugligetkirche was bursting at the seams, we were directed to a new emergency camp, which was built two kilometers away.
The pioneer camp of Csillebérc was a convivial home of the party youth in the middle of the Budapest mountains. Surrounded by woods and meadows here were simple, single-storey bungalows in rows of six. There were five bunk beds in each, and in front of the window the trees swayed in the wind. There was a central laundry with sink and toilets, as well as a canteen with two dining rooms.
We were among the first 40 newcomers. In the coming weeks, up to 500 new refugees should arrive here every day. The Maltese were preparing for a major operation, everywhere on the site piled tarpaulins and scaffolding. All hope was now on the government of Hungary. Would you open the border to Austria?
Next week in Part 2: Stasi riot and camp roller, 5,000 people in joy and stasis in the new apartment.
