by Nina Willner
Oma woke Heidi and they gathered up their belongings. As they disembarked, Heidi scanned the faces of passengers rushing past, looking for the face she only knew from photographs. Oma, her heart beating fast in nervous anticipation, also searched the sea of people for her daughter. Then, suddenly, from afar Oma and Hanna spotted each other and locked gazes. Hanna ran toward them, waving her hand in the air and making her way through the crowd.
To Heidi, it looked like her sister was approaching in slow motion. Like a scene in a dream, Hanna looked like a graceful angel floating toward her. It was a vision Heidi would carry with her for the rest of her life. Mother and daughter fell into each other’s arms.
Then it was Heidi’s turn. Hanna, her face wet with tears, bent down and took Heidi into her arms.
“So this is my little sister. Let me look at you,” she said, splaying out her arms and looking Heidi over from top to bottom.
Shy at first, Heidi just looked at her sister, then asked, “Why is everyone crying? Aren’t we happy?”
The women laughed through their tears. Hanna picked up the suitcase and took Heidi’s hand. “Welcome to the famous city of Heidelberg,” she said. Then to Heidi, “Come along now. Do you want to see my place?”
At her flat, Hanna served Oma a cup of tea and the two reengaged, trying their best to keep the conversation light and deeper emotions at bay. Heidi set to work exploring every nook and cranny and getting into Hanna’s personal things. After an hour or so, the landlady knocked on the door and angrily asked who had been flushing the toilet every two minutes. Hanna found Heidi in the bathroom, mesmerized with the flushing mechanism, something she had never before seen, only ever having known the simple concept of an outhouse.
Over the next two days, Heidi barely left Hanna’s side, insisting on sleeping in the same bed with her. She held Hanna’s hand every chance she could, played with her hair, carried her handbag, and constantly stared at her when they sat on the streetcar, walked along the river, or strolled in the park. Heidi became completely enamored of Hanna, smitten with what she saw as a beautiful, blissfully happy young woman with a confident smile and a warm, open, carefree disposition. Heidi quickly came to think of her big sister as an example of the young woman that she herself could one day become.
They toured the Heidelberg Castle. On the grounds of the ruins, they watched an outdoor theater production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Heidi became lost in scenes of fairies dancing and flitting about in verdant woodlands. At night they watched dazzling fireworks light up the night sky. The second day, they took a riverboat cruise and had coffee at the Red Ox, where just a few years earlier Hanna had played piano for tips as she struggled to make ends meet.
On their last evening together, they took a long stroll on the Philosophers’ Walk. After a while, they sat on a bench to have a rest along the gleaming riverbank. While little boats with lighted lanterns sailed on the Neckar River below, there was what seemed like miles of deafening silence between mother and daughter.
At the train station the next day, they embraced. Hanna took a long time to let Oma go. Heidi nuzzled her face in Hanna’s torso. Hanna hugged her back firmly, then sank down to take Heidi in her arms and look her in the eye. Stroking her long braids, she smiled at the sweet, pure face staring back at her. Heidi did not smile back, and looked away.
Then, before Heidi could see the tears welling in Hanna’s eyes, Hanna hugged her again then whispered in her ear, “Be good. Take care of our mother.”
Oma and Heidi slowly boarded the train. Like birds that had been set free for a short, beautiful time, it was as if they were being put back into the confinement of their cold metal cage. They shuffled to their cabin, then appeared at the window. Hanna was heartsick to see them on the train, but masked her emotions. Oma stood behind Heidi as the two stared out the window at Hanna. Hanna stared back.
Oma and Heidi in Heidelberg
Courtesy of the Willner family
When the train began to move slowly eastward, Oma waved. Heidi, looking forlorn, put her palm against the window in one last effort to connect with Hanna. Hanna waved until she could no longer see them, and stood in place until the train was out of sight.
And so it was in the autumn of 1954, the two sisters met, one twenty-six, the other only five. It would be the only time they would ever meet during the forty-year existence of East Germany.
When Heidi returned home, the children gathered round to hear her talk about Hanna, and about what they had seen and done in the West. Everyone wanted to know about the Heidelberg Castle. Opa listened to it all, but didn’t ask a single question.
The Schwaneberg police did not even call Oma in. Perhaps they already knew that she had not been successful in her task of convincing Hanna to come back or become a spy. Perhaps they figured she hadn’t even tried. But one thing was for certain: they chalked it up as one more failure of the family to comply. Because Oma did not hold up her end of the bargain with the authorities, they made it clear that subsequent applications to travel to the West would be rejected.
Heidi carrying Hanna’s handbag, Heidelberg
Courtesy of the Willner family
Heidi asked Oma for a photograph of Hanna and put it on her nightstand. Over the next months, she emulated her big sister’s gestures, recalling her manner of speech, her elegant gait, her sashay. She thought constantly about Hanna, at times even pretending to be her, walking around as if she were a stylish lady with a fancy purse, a demure glance here, then there, going to a castle, riding a streetcar, having a cup of coffee at an outdoor café. At school she did not mention her visit at all. She already knew enough not to let on that she was captivated with her sister who had fled and was living a good life in the West.
At night she often fell asleep clutching Mariechen, her East German baby doll, who, with her large eyes, sweet face, and long black braids, resembled Heidi herself. Stroking her doll’s hair as she fell asleep, Heidi would whisper, “Mariechen, don’t you wonder what Hanna is doing right this very minute on the other side of the stars?” Mariechen gazed back, the moonlight glinting off her blue marble eyes with their faraway stare.
9
LIFE NORMALIZES IN A POLICE STATE
A COURTSHIP
(1955–1957)
You are like stale beer! There is no need for you any longer.
—East German propaganda pamphlet
In 1955, at around the same time West Germany became a free state, the Soviet Union allowed East Germany to declare its sovereignty.
In the first decade of its existence, the world had viewed East Germany through the prism of Soviet domination, but now Moscow gave East Germany’s leaders primary responsibility to take charge of their own affairs.
The Ulbricht regime wasted no time. Huge resources went into expanding the secret police. East German authorities took complete control of information through the censorship of virtually every form of written and spoken word, from textbooks to newscasts. Ulbricht and his Soviet-trained inner circle of dogmatic communists were bent on proving to Moscow that they were every bit as hard-line as their Kremlin counterparts.
That same year, in 1955, West Germany joined NATO, and the Soviet Union followed suit by forming the Warsaw Pact. While U.S.-led NATO was governed by a system of consensus in which each member nation, even tiny Iceland, received an equal say, Warsaw Pact countries strictly took their marching orders from Moscow.
Later that year, West Germany established a military, and a few months later East Germany formed the NVA, the National People’s Army, which fell in line with the other armies of communist Eastern Europe, under the ever-watchful scrutiny of Moscow.
At the U.S. Army headquarters in Heidelberg, Hanna was sitting at her desk the first time the new lieutenant with the sparkling eyes passed by.
He smiled and said hello, but she responded coolly. She was used to American soldiers trying to catch her eye, but she had no intention of getting involved with any GI. She had just returned from
a vacation in Capri, where she had fallen in love with Italy, and had already made up her mind to follow her dreams to one day move there. In her spare time, Hanna even began studying Italian.
But every day, the dashing young lieutenant, an intelligence officer, politely greeted her. After a while, she realized, something about him was drawing her in. Then one morning he passed by and stopped at her desk. Pointing to the large satchel she carried in place of a handbag, he asked in perfect colloquial German, “What do you carry in that big bag you’re always lugging around?”
Hanna was taken aback. She looked at his name tag.
“Lieutenant Willner,” she asked, “how is that you speak such good German?”
He smiled and replied, again fluently, “Oh, thank you for the compliment. We have very good language schools in America.”
Beyond his lively eyes and curiously flawless command of the language, she thought, there was something clearly special about Lieutenant Willner.
In East Germany, there was no letup in the number of those risking escape, and by the mid-1950s, millions had fled. Despite the sealing of the East–West Inner German border in 1952, many still remained determined to get out any way they could and turned to increasingly risky methods. Some even tried to make a break for it by swimming the forty miles in the frigid waters of the Baltic Sea, hoping to reach Denmark. Most did not make it, and scores of bodies washed up on Danish shores. Others tried to flee through other Soviet satellite countries, where borders were rumored to be less stringently controlled.
The route that offered the best chance of escape was from East to West Berlin. Still interconnected by its roads, subway, and sewer systems and still unable to be completely controlled by the East German authorities, Berlin continued to be a sieve for escapes. But there was a growing concern that one day the authorities would somehow find a way to seal off the city. Thus in the mid-1950s there was an upsurge in escapes into West Berlin.
As people adapted to a police state with a secret police at the helm, a heightened sense of gloom took hold in East Germany. There was an uneasy arbitrariness to it all. Throughout the country, as the Stasi beefed up its network of informants used to report on the activities of coworkers, neighbors, and even family members, it was impossible to know who might be reporting to the secret police or what stray thought uttered to an associate, friend, or even loved one might make its way back to the authorities.
Now when Oma talked to the neighbors or engaged with various people in the community, her radar was up and she wondered, as everyone did, if those she once considered friends had become informants. Once when Oma went to claim her dairy rations, the worker, whom she had known for years, reached out to give her several extra eggs. She declined them, thinking him a possible informant and the “gift” some kind of test or ruse. At his weekly Saturday-night card games, Opa, assuming that some in the group were likely reporting on whatever he said, kept his thoughts to himself and showed no hint of his displeasure with the regime.
By now, news sources were simply organs of official propaganda used to bend the truth. There was virtually no mention of the outside world, especially the West, unless it was negative.
Opa longed for news about West Germany, feeling it was his only means of keeping any kind of connection with Hanna. Listening to Western news broadcasts was punishable, considered an act of betrayal against the state; but despite the risks, occasionally Opa still tried to secretly tune in to BBC radio newscasts, which had been his favorite source of news until the regime started jamming the signal. Realizing the damage listening to Western broadcasts could have on its ability to keep control of the population, the authorities scoured the country looking to see which way home and workplace antennas were directed.
Heidi was a confident child, full of esprit and self-esteem. As most children are, she was also naturally curious, which the regime did not consider an asset in East German children. With the authorities trying to institute tighter controls over freedom of thought, Heidi’s teacher pulled Opa aside two weeks into the start of Heidi’s second grade and told him that his precocious daughter was asking too many questions.
The next time Hanna saw Lieutenant Willner was early one afternoon when they were both leaving the U.S. Army headquarters building in Heidelberg.
“Where are you off to?” he asked.
“To the courthouse,” she said, “to watch the trial of a Nazi concentration camp guard. I cannot believe what they say the Germans did to the Jews during the war. I want to see and hear for myself . . . and if it’s true, I want to see justice done.”
“What a coincidence,” he said. “I happen to be going there myself. Shall we go together?”
At the Heidelberg courthouse, the American military policeman standing guard outside the courtroom asked for Hanna’s identification.
“Sergeant, she’s with me,” Lieutenant Willner said, but the guard responded, “No Germans allowed, sir.”
Lieutenant Willner was ushered into the military tribunal, leaving Hanna to find her way back to the office.
The next morning when he passed by her desk, she asked about the verdict and he said that the guard had been found guilty of war crimes.
Several days went by. By now Hanna looked forward to the lieutenant’s daily greetings. But then he was nowhere to be seen. After a week went by with no sign of him, a postcard arrived from Berlin. He was there on a business trip and wrote that he was thinking of her. He signed the card, “Eddie.”
When he returned, she noticed they seemed to have more chance encounters. Then he invited her to the movies at the base theater and she accepted. That date was followed by an invitation to dinner, and after that, the two began to spend more and more time together. He asked her about her life. She told him that she had fled East Germany and about the family she had left behind. He told her little about himself, mostly talking about his life in the army and sharing photographs from his travels to exotic places like India and Japan.
Over time Hanna pressed, wanting to know more about his family, where he was from, where in America he had gone to school. Finally and reluctantly, Eddie opened up. He was a German Jew and a Holocaust survivor. When she asked about his family, he told her that he was alone, and that he was the only one in his family who had survived.
As he spoke, she realized that there was no going back. She was drawn to this man, to his life, and to his story. They were, in a way, similar. They had both lost their families and were determined to make the most of their new lives in freedom. From then on, the two were a team.
By 1956, the communist youth movement in the East was in full swing, with millions of children being born purely into communism. In Schwaneberg, young Heidi was taking her first steps as a budding communist by joining the Young Pioneers. Oma tied a red kerchief around Heidi’s collar and Heidi set off, hand in hand with sisters ten-year-old Tutti and eleven-year-old Helga, to her first meeting. Heidi quickly made friends and watched to see how the older children behaved; she was excited to see what all the fuss was about and eager to follow their lead.
The meeting was called to order and all the children ceremoniously encircled the Pioneer flag, saluting with thumbs to their forehead, hand facing out. In a perfect example of youthful communist discipline, a young girl several years older than Heidi corrected Heidi’s salute, straightening her elbow, telling her to stand up straighter, and commanding Heidi to bark out the motto “Always ready” with real conviction and spirit.
Heidi took the Young Pioneer oath, promising to wear the red scarf, the flag of the Communist Party, with honor, vowing to cherish the Soviet Union, and to love and defend the “socialist fatherland.” Over the next months, she learned cheery, carefully masked, propaganda-laden songs and watched films about happy Soviet life. She was proud to be selected for a bit part in a play depicting dedicated factory workers. But something had started bothering her.
At supper one evening, she asked Oma why everyone hated the West so much. Oma looked to Opa to
answer.
“We need to protect ourselves against our enemies and some of them are in the West,” he stated matter-of-factly, and began eating, signaling he was finished with the topic. Recalling no threatening characters on her trip to the West almost two years earlier, Heidi was confused. She became quiet, thinking it through. Several minutes later, she declared that she no longer wanted to attend Young Pioneer meetings. But by the next meeting, Opa had convinced her to return, assuring her it was for the best.
Then Heidi announced that she wanted to write a letter to Hanna to ask her a few questions. Oma gently talked her out of it, simply saying that it was not a good time to try to contact Hanna. Eventually Heidi would come to understand that there were some things best not written in a letter, especially to anyone in the West.
At around the same time Heidi became a Young Pioneer, Kai turned fourteen, and so it was time for him to join the FDJ. The Jugendweihe (youth initiation) ceremony, a tradition in Germany long before the Soviets took over, was akin to a religious confirmation, marking a young person’s entry into adulthood. By the 1950s, however, the East German regime had co-opted the ceremony, using it to mark the dedication of one’s life to communism.
The community hall was decorated with East German flags, flowers, and vibrant red banners that spanned the stage. The inductees’ family members, who were required to be in attendance, sat in the audience dressed in what they once called their Sunday best. Kai took the stage with the other members of his class.
Local leaders gave solemn speeches about the importance of the ceremony as they called on the young socialists to strive to become loyal East German citizens.
The attending official turned to the inductees with serious bearing: