Chapter Seven

East Berlin, August 18, 1961

“Your name?

When were you born?

Where do you live?

Where was your father on September 1, 1939?”

Berlin was in crisis.

My student visa was cancelled. The tense officer addressed us directly, and the bare lights in the room threw a menacing glow on everything. Uncle Bill and I were now at the East Berlin Reiseburo, an official government transport office, negotiating the steps to get me to West Germany within the next three days.

“What is your relationship to this American girl?”

“Where are her parents?”

“Your wife is a Berliner? You understand that if you leave to escort the child, you may not return to Berlin?”

Bill smiled and explained that he was a U.S. teacher, with a work permit for the year.

“I will ask my superior.” The official turned away from us and went to a desk in the back.

“No, there are no family visas, transit visas, or work permits. All Americans are to exit Berlin via GDR transports. No one will be allowed to enter Berlin. You may stay with your wife and her family, or you may escort your niece.”

The dilapidated government offices had not been rebuilt since the war.   Pale paint was peeling off the walls, and patches of brick and rock showed through the plaster. Lines of Germans and international visitors were everywhere, requesting assistance from an anonymous authority. East Berlin was a new Iron Curtain country that had only had physical borders for a couple days. Clerks were improvising procedures as they revoked visas, separated families and negated people’s rights. Suddenly no West Berliners were allowed on the subway through East Berlin, even though one of the main arteries of the subway had gone under East Berlin before coming up at the West Berlin Zoo, museums, and parks. Public transport was divided into a series of legs by bus and train that circumvented East Berlin. Everyone carried full ID everywhere – passports and proof of citizenship were needed even to go to work at jobs people had held for years.

The West German government requested evacuation of all non-Berliners by the end of the week – Sunday, August 20^th. The Cold War was on the verge of erupting into a hot war.

Border incidents were being logged at the rate of several a day. Daring escapes and attempted escapes were reported in Western media, as Berliners tried to bring their families together across the divided landscape of the city. East Berliners dug, ran, and shot their way out. A young VOPO jumped the wire fences, machine gun and all, leaving his East German life behind. Now that my visa was cancelled I was supposed to leave immediately, but it turned out I would be going alone. Uncle Bill had not found a way to take me across the border and then return to his family in Berlin. The country was no longer safe. Back at Mutti Liddy’s house another string of directions followed as Monika packed my things.

Germans like to have precise systems in place. The trains run on time, everyone is accounted for, and papers are checked and cross-checked. Although the West German government requested evacuation, only the East German government could issue the transportation visas. The two German governments were not in agreement as to how this was to be accomplished.  For three days in a row we traveled back and forth to complete stacks of forms that no one understood. On the first day, it was an excursion, but the sober people in the streets and empty cafes were a jarring sight. People walked with heads down and faces concealed. Some disappeared into the uniform rows of gray block buildings. On the second visit the officials tried to ask me questions by myself. I just stared at them, and I couldn’t answer them or read the papers. Cold sweat was everywhere in the room even though it was a hot afternoon. Uncle Bill calmly began translating words and ideas that I did not understand, not even in English.   His blue eyes moved constantly as he looked into the unblinking stares of the officers. I knew this was scary but I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to be afraid of.

The stomachaches started in the car. My passport was stamped and Uncle Bill had my ticket to West Germany. Safely back at Mutti Liddy’s, the adults tried compresses on my tummy, and mixed up potions to drink. Thermometers were unreliable in the hot August weather – a fever may not be a fever. A doctor came by.   Finally the illness was diagnosed as “nerves” and the day had arrived. It was time to leave. There was just one more hitch in the plans. Train travel across Germany had been halted as “escape fever” had spread through the countryside. This afternoon Berlin passengers were put into a series of buses with government escorts, unloaded at borders, walked across, and reboarded. Just a week earlier, these buses had traveled back and forth along the corridor without interruption.

On the ride to the train station and the buses, Uncle Bill repeated the complicated instructions for the trip. He tried to cheer me up. “A worker comes to the office to join the Communist Party. The clerk asks him, “Which do you prefer, Pravda (Russian state newspaper) or Radio Free Europe? Oh, Pravda, of course. And why is that? Because you can’t wrap herring in a radio.” Bill did his best to convince me that everything would be fine, but he kept his eyes on the road. As they loaded suitcases, he talked to the bus driver and introduced me. I was to sit behind the driver. Then he waited, waving as the bus pulled away from the stop. My mother and I were to call as soon as the bus arrived in Braunschweig in West Germany.

The first stop was for documentation at a Brandenburg checkpoint. We were now entering East Germany. Suddenly, a few seats back, a loud argument erupted. The VOPOs escorted two passengers off the bus at gunpoint. The big guns with heavy stocks and long barrels were raised to waist level, or eye level for a child in a front seat.    Still and silent, the tears came, obscuring the pages of a new book. No instructions were needed about keeping my head down.  The Iron Curtain was real, with block walls and barbed wire, anti-vehicle ditches and booby traps. Red and white signs indicated that the area was full of land mines. Finally the bus pulled away as a light rain began to spray across the gray countryside.   Not daring to look out of the obscured window, I kept my head down for a few silent hours until the second checkpoint was reached.

The bus arrived at the train station in Braunschweig, Federal Republic of Germany. Where was Mom?   Two polo shirts, one yellow and one blue, came running and shouting down the platform. Jack and Louis had their arms around me with mom’s long arms around everyone.

“Mom, we have to call Berlin. Uncle Bill said that we needed to call the minute I arrived.”

Mom squeezed me. “We’ll look for a pay phone. There’s probably one here in the train station.” Then she collected Jack from a kiosk with interesting signs.

“I really need to call. He’s waiting. Please can we find one right now?”   Just four hours ago, Uncle Bill made it very clear that he was expecting this call.  He didn’t say he was scared but his message was one of caution, even as he told his silly jokes. Ellie and Louis, free spirits now, had no idea of what the past week in Berlin was like, and didn’t understand the urgency, or why Bill would be so worried. There was no phone in the train station. Phones were only available at the Post Office, and it was impossible to get a line through to Berlin. In fact, when Louis and Mom had called to make final arrangements for meeting the transport, their attempt to phone Berlin had taken two days to get through. Louis said they would try again in a day or two after the mandatory evacuations were lifted.

Years later, Uncle Bill talked about how he had waited up that night for the phone call, worried sick. He had realized that the border trip was very dangerous. The VOPOs were shooting at anyone who looked suspicious. He was so sorry that I had to travel by myself. It was so scary with all those armed men, the barbed wire, and the very aggressive treatment at the border. Actually, in some way, the Berlin Crisis didn’t seem as real to me until we visited a concentration camp months later.  I studied the photographs of people being shot and piled into the graves. After that I became terrified of the VOPOs.