Forty Autumns

by Nina Willner

  Spurred on by the notion that the window for escape was slowly closing, thousands made a run for the West, taking their chances on getting caught. Though it was still relatively easy to cross in some outlying areas, security on the border was increasing every day. Hanna was one of the lucky ones who made it out. Many were not as fortunate, and by now, young and old, men and women, families with children, were shot or arrested and sent off to prisons that were rapidly popping up throughout the East Zone.

  Prisons now saw a steady influx of those who tried to flee, those who challenged the system, and many who were swept up arbitrarily and charged with wrongdoing. Inside the notorious Hohenschönhausen and Bautzen prisons, and even Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen, former Nazi concentration camps that had been turned into East German prisons, the Soviets and communist Germans wasted no time extracting confessions often based on fabrications, misrepresentations of the truth, or complete lies.

  “Traitors” of all kinds were brought before kangaroo court Soviet tribunals, where defendants were presumed guilty and sentenced to hard labor or death. In the first years, the Soviets would execute hundreds of East Zone citizens.

  Hanna worked for the Schneiders for nearly three months, cleaning, cooking, and taking care of their young son. All was well until a farmhand who had had a tiff with Mr. Schneider tipped off the police that an illegal was working for the family. Compelled to investigate, but reviling his role in returning escapees to the East, a West Zone policeman reluctantly paid the Schneiders a visit. He wrote down Hanna’s identification information.

  “Please,” she pleaded, “in two weeks I will be twenty-one years old and then I will be legal.” The policeman held Hanna’s gaze. Then he nodded, smiled at her, and snapped almost comically to attention as if he were about to make a profound declaration.

  “Fraulein!” he announced with a mock, exaggerated air of authority. “You are a minor and in the West Zone illegally. By law I am obligated to take you into custody and deliver you back to your guardians in the East. I will be back in two weeks to pick you up.” With that, he smiled, bid good day, and walked away.

  Two weeks later, the East Zone police and my grandparents received an official cable announcing that their daughter had become a legal resident, and had chosen to remain in the West.

  The local VoPo commandant summoned Opa and Oma to their new headquarters, the building that had once housed the local Gestapo office. His disappointment palpable, he stared coldly at Opa across the desk, trying to intimidate him. He said little besides “how unfortunate that your daughter has decided to flee,” then shook his head and told them to go.

  It was clear the stakes were now higher. Fearing the impact that Hanna’s escape and refusal to return would have on his family, Opa threw himself into his work, hoping to regain favor with the authorities. Oma began to worry about Opa’s ability to cope with the burdens he now carried, the stresses of trying to paint himself as a good communist, trying to provide for his family, but now with the added label of “father of a criminal.”

  The rest of that December passed and, knowing they were being watched by the authorities, Opa cautioned Oma and the children to avoid drawing any attention to themselves. That year Oma thought it best to lie low and refrain from celebrating Christmas in any way whatsoever.

  In the West, on Christmas Eve, Hanna became terribly homesick. She went with the Schneiders to church and, when the organist played “Stille Nacht,” “Silent Night,” she sobbed uncontrollably in the midst of the service, to the utter embarrassment of the Schneiders and the annoyed looks of the other worshippers. Unable to control her tears, she ran out of the church and all the way home.

  After the new year, Hanna gathered up her wages and her few belongings, chopped off her braids with a pair of Mrs. Schneider’s sewing shears, bid farewell to the Schneiders, and took off on a train heading farther west, bound for the castle city that was calling her. In Heidelberg, she hoped to disappear into the crowds of a bigger city.

  She arrived in Heidelberg at sundown and spent the first night sleeping on the freezing floor of the main train station with little more to keep her warm other than a secondhand wool coat that Mrs. Schneider had given her upon her departure. The next morning she awoke to a policeman pushing her off. She rose and went to find the Heidelberg Castle.

  As the chill of the Cold War winds blew in, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and other Western countries began to realize the need for a cohesive military alliance against the Soviets. Hoping to discourage acts of aggression by the Soviet Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created with all parties agreeing to mutual defense of one another in response to an attack by any outside force.

  Meanwhile, while shoots of democracy were taking root in the West, the East German regime took control of the media, censoring all the news and information that reached the eyes and ears of the citizens of the East Zone. Amid a budding propaganda and misinformation campaign, and with strict consequences for tuning in to radio signals from the West, Oma, Opa, and the rest of the family were not aware of what was happening outside the East Zone. Few if any of the villagers had heard anything about the establishment of NATO or anything else happening in the West. Like everyone else in the East, however, they sensed that the Soviets were intent on severing ties with the West and drawing the East Zone further into isolation.

  Firmly convinced that the success of communism in Germany lay in the hands of the next generation, the Soviets launched a youth movement. Chosen to lead the movement was thirty-three-year-old hard-liner Erich Honecker.

  A Party stalwart since the age of eight, Honecker had joined the German communist movement at fourteen. During the Nazi years, he was sentenced to ten years’ hard labor for participating in communist activities and for refusing to repudiate his ideological convictions. Freed by the Red Army in 1945, he became one of the first German Communist Party members in Soviet-occupied Germany.

  Viewed as a trailblazer and a visionary, physically the small Honecker was hardly the image of Soviet might, and his humorless demeanor hardly made him likable, but what he lacked in charisma, he made up for in ideological ambition. Staunchly driven to reshape the Soviet Zone, he set forth to transform the country’s youth. Some twenty years later, Honecker would be rewarded for his contributions to his country by becoming the leader of East Germany.

  Honecker quickly set to work establishing the FDJ, or Free German Youth, and the Young Pioneers. Much like the Soviet Komsomol, the programs were grounded in propaganda and portrayed communist society as a rich and fulfilling, all-benefiting utopia, its youth icons of patriotism. Scouting and sports activities aimed to win over the children’s hearts and minds and recast them as future revolutionary leaders of their country. Teachers like Opa were forced to vigorously promote the program and encourage the children to participate in the meetings. Parents soon realized that participation in the system came with benefits. It would lead their children to opportunity and advancement in education, whereas lack of participation, simply, would not.

  In Schwaneberg, the first gathering of the FDJ and Young Pioneers was quite a spectacle. Like a preacher welcoming Sunday parishioners, Mayor Boch stood outside the community house greeting the children with smiles and hearty handshakes, making a mental note of who did and did not show up. Hanna’s siblings all showed up, Oma and Opa having directed their children to go, knowing it was in the best interests of the family.

  Klemens was initially reluctant to take part, but Tiele was intrigued, having decided that the word “free” in an organization called the Free German Youth might mean the group would have something worthwhile to offer. The activities would also give her a chance to socialize more often with friends and classmates, which, in the rigidness that the school environment had become, she longed to do. At just thirteen, Manni was still too young for the FDJ but couldn’t wait to join the Young Pioneers. To him it all sounded like great fun, especially after the long, arduous years of war. With
her oldest son a teacher and three of her children off to join the communist youth movement, Oma remained at home with the littlest ones, Kai, Helga, and Tutti.

  Nestled into the Odenwald Mountains, the Heidelberg Castle overlooks the romantic old city of Heidelberg, which lies sprawled out in the green Neckar Valley below. In a gentle snowfall on a frigid January day, Hanna made her way from the train station through the downtown cobblestone city streets. The aroma of freshly baked bread steered her into a bakery, where she purchased a brötchen bread roll, then emerged back out onto the street into the bustling morning crowd, which parted for the clanging streetcar plowing through. Moving with the masses, she stopped in her tracks when, off in the distance, she spotted the castle. Shoppers and workers pushed past, bumping and jostling her as she stood rooted, staring at the fortress, mesmerized by its majestic presence, which had come to symbolize her quest for freedom.

  She took in a long, deep breath. Then she crossed over the old stone bridge that spanned the Neckar and slowly made her way up the hill.

  From the castle kit model that she had helped to assemble as a child, she knew much of the architecture by heart, including the design configurations of the various structures, towers, turrets, and spires, the locations of the archways and alcoves, and inside, the hallways and staircases. Her job had been to piece together the south towers with Manni, who had been particularly fascinated with the tiny drawbridge that actually opened and closed.

  Now she stood before the real palace, taken aback at its massive size and construction. Her eyes panned the length of the great, red sandstone structure. Once just a child’s chimerical fascination, it was far bigger than she had ever imagined.

  She wandered the grounds, thinking about her family, and about the journey that had brought her to this point. A flood of emotions consumed her, her heart aching for them to be there with her.

  From the hillside, she turned to look back down toward the city. Beyond the valley, endless blue sky stretched as far as the eye could see. As she scanned the skyline, a feeling of peace washed over her. One chapter in her life had closed and another was just beginning. At a little shop nearby, she bought a postcard of the castle and tucked it away.

  Deep inside the East Zone, another castle, almost as grandiose and imposing as the Heidelberg Castle, was receiving a lot of attention for an altogether different and very sinister reason.

  The Hoheneck Castle too sat high on a hilltop, but in the Erzgebirge Mountains, dominating Stollberg, a lovely, picturesque German town that lay in the lush, green valley below. Both fortresses were built in the thirteenth century and had been home to great royalty and an eclectic array of renowned European dignitaries and distinguished luminaries. But unlike the Heidelberg Castle, which was open to tourists coming from around the world to learn about Germany’s rich history through its renowned Gothic and Renaissance architecture, the Hoheneck Castle was closed to visitors, and in the process of being turned into a women’s prison.

  Women of all ages—teenagers, young mothers, some with children, middle-aged and older women, even pregnant women—filed in. Some had no idea why they had even been arrested. Others had been charged with various infractions and crimes: attempting to flee the Soviet Zone, inciting dissent, participating in secret underground organizations that conspired to conduct subversive activities against the regime. Many were innocent of the charges, but the regime could take no chances.

  Terrified women and girls shuffled through the heavy iron gates into the creepy castle, one behind the other, where they were met by brutal guards, then stripped and thrown, in groups of thirty, into pitch-black concrete cells designed to hold four. There, skin to skin, in total darkness, with no room to sit, they were made to stand in knee-deep freezing water for days on end in dank, poorly ventilated chambers until they simply passed out from exhaustion and despair. From there, they were released to overcrowded prison cells, where they awaited their summons to appear before a Soviet tribunal. During interrogation they were beaten.

  Some were given a chance to redeem themselves by working for the police, spying on and extracting information from their fellow prisoners that could be used to incriminate them and others. Those who refused to spy were often promptly executed. Others were sent to hard labor or to further torture in the castle dungeon, their mountaintop screams muted to the inhabitants of picturesque Stollberg in the valley below.

  6

  A SISTER BORN IN THE EAST

  THE STASI TAKES CONTROL

  (1949–1952)

  It has to look democratic, but we have got to have it under control.

  —East German leader Walter Ulbricht

  Throughout the East, by and large, people had no real understanding about what was happening in the prison system. In Schwaneberg, Oma and Opa carefully watched over their children. Knowing they could not risk another child challenging the regime, they set a good example of conforming, abiding by the law and following rules, and instructed their children to stay out of trouble. In an effort to preempt any ideas the children might have about fleeing, Opa gave clear warnings.

  “It’s extremely dangerous and anyway, your life is here with your family.” Just for good measure, he added, “No one goes anywhere.” With the stakes now higher, they had to make sure their children remained amenable and compliant.

  Unbeknownst to Oma and Opa, however, just a few months earlier, nineteen-year-old Klemens unsuccessfully tried to follow in his sister’s footsteps. The summer before starting teachers’ college, he offered to go up to Seebenau to help Kallehn on his farm. One day, he made a run for the border, but he was caught and taken back to the Soviet Commandatura to be processed into the prison system. Someone ran to the farm to tell Kallehn, who was eating his noonday meal in his kitchen. He got up from the table, charged out the door, stormed to the Commandatura, and demanded to see his grandson.

  A Russian soldier brought Klemens forward and Kallehn smacked him hard in the face and angrily hollered, “What are doing? You come home with me. I need you in the field!” With that he dragged Klemens out of the building, leaving the soldiers shocked and speechless, but no doubt saving Klemens from a term in the prison system.

  Hanna had no real sense of how lucky she had been to escape. Completely oblivious to the terror young women like her were facing at the Hoheneck Castle, she spent the next few days exploring Heidelberg.

  Thrilled at the idea of getting a Western education, she made her way to Heidelberg University and proudly offered her new West German citizenship papers to the registrar. But there was a problem. Because she had not completed high school, she was barred from enrolling for university classes. Stunned, she pleaded, explaining that she was a refugee from the East and had been only one week shy of obtaining a high school diploma when she had fled. Surely the registrar could empathize. Rules were rules, he retorted, dismissing her with a flick of the hand and calling for the next in line.

  Disappointed but undeterred, she walked to the local community college and signed up for English classes. After paying one month’s tuition, she then searched for a flat. A six-by-eight-foot room with a dirty, battered old couch was all she could afford. With the money she had left over, she secured the room for a month.

  With her last funds spent, she needed to find a way to make money, but without official work credentials or a high school diploma, she was limited to the lowest-paying jobs. Over the next year, she worked as a piano player in a downtown city bar, a hat-check girl, a housekeeper, a nanny, and even went door-to-door selling underwear. She often went without food in order to save money for rent and tuition.

  One day, while standing before her English class making a presentation, having eaten little in the preceding three days, she fainted. A classmate jumped to take her to a doctor, but when Hanna came to, she refused, knowing that she couldn’t afford medical care. All of her classmates knew the skinny little East German refugee was too proud to accept handouts and was trying to make it on her own. Soon she began to fi
nd sausage, bread and butter, and other gifts left from anonymous donors in her schoolbag.

  In the little spare time she had, she learned to type on a classmate’s typewriter and studied English shorthand. After a few months, she was able to make a down payment on her own typewriter. But at the beginning of each month, when rent was due, she always took the typewriter to the pawnshop to be hawked, but told the pawnbroker not to sell it because she would be back after the first of the month to get it back.

  In Schwaneberg, Oma and Opa still had no word from Hanna. It had been six months since she had escaped. For Oma, the time was marked by hollow days and she became distressed not knowing what had become of her daughter. For a time, the mood at home was reserved and quiet, except for Opa’s outbursts, which were becoming more frequent. There was no discussion of Hanna’s flight to the West; it was a painful and off-limits topic. The children knew not to speak of their sister who had fled, yet they missed her terribly, and the youngest ones, especially, couldn’t even fully comprehend why she had left, and felt as if she had simply vanished from their lives. Although Roland had chosen another path, as painful as it was to bear the separation from his beloved sister, by now he had dedicated himself to his career and building a future within the system.

  Some eight months after Hanna had fled, and to Oma’s great relief, the family in the East finally received word of her whereabouts in the form of a postcard from Heidelberg.

  Oma held it like it was a winning lottery ticket. The children gathered round. On one side was a beautiful color photograph of the Heidelberg Castle; on the other Hanna had written that she was safe, was working hard and studying, had her own flat and was eating well. She ended her note, “Papa, the Heidelberg Castle is just as wonderful as you said it would be.”