Picnic at the Iron Curtain: A Memoir: From the fall of the Berlin Wall to Ukraine's Orange Revolution
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“I would like to get to know how you think, because you follow events from another perspective,” Helga said.
I described my initial impressions of Hungary, surprised that life here differed so much for the better from my expectations. My mother had visited Leningrad a few years earlier – an elegant city she said, filled with dour citizens dressed in drab clothes. The Soviet Bloc loomed in my mind as one large monolith and I therefore assumed that Communist Budapest would be similarly bleak and foreboding. It did not take long for these preconceptions to change.
Helga interrupted. “Yes, but you knew people from Hungaria and how it must be?”
“No, I didn’t know anyone here.”
“Just like us,” Sabine quipped.
“But I felt at home almost right away,” I said, “though, I had no idea how much Hungarians despise the Soviets.”
“We do not hate Russians in the DDR,” Sabine said. “They’re ahead of us. I try to teach some of what I learned in Moscow in my classes but I am not allowed. It is too progressive for us.”
“Hungaria is different, the happiest barracks,” said Helga. “In countries like Poland you have always to wait in long lines for something.” She glanced at Sabine.
I said that the Hungarian Communists surprised me. I never expected reformers in the party to lobby so aggressively for change, though the political opposition generated the freshest, boldest ideas. Many of the opposition members spoke English, so I could talk to them without an interpreter. Law students, about my age, vibrant and intellectually sophisticated, founded a liberal, reform-oriented political party, Fidesz. I went to their meetings, barbecues, parties and wished that all this existed at home. I never thought that I would be jealous of students in a Communist country. I told the East Germans that I wanted a life like this too.
“I had a crush on one of the opposition members, but not anymore,” I confessed. “Shotsy, the man with the megaphone. He leads the Fidesz marches.” They giggled.
“Handsome?” Sabine asked.
“Lean, energetic, this fiercely determined sense of purpose,” I replied. “We had drinks together after a massive demonstration that ended at the central television station. I asked Shotsy how he felt as he stood at the top of the steps, with tens of thousands of protesters at his feet.”
“I knew if I told them to charge the building, they would,” he said.
“Those opposition leaders have so much power but they’re restrained,” I told Sabine and Helga. “I guess that’s why the change is so orderly.”
Two events stood out for Ute, Helga and Sabine: the first, the April 1989 initial withdrawal of Soviet tanks from Hungary. Two months later the government cut through an Iron Curtain section in Hungary, which left a big hole in a barbed wire fence that separated Hungary from Austria, and the Soviet Bloc from Western Europe.
“Liberation,” I started to say. Sabine interrupted, her interpretation, different:
“When the tanks went and the cut in the Iron Curtain happened people in DDR thought our leaders would lock the border,” Sabine said. “We wanted to come to Hungaria before the locking.”
I imagined gigantic impregnable gates slamming shut all around the border of East Germany. I could go anywhere in the world that I wanted. Travel options for Ute, Helga and Sabine, already limited, were about to become worse. They would soon be prisoners in their own country.
“The problem how to pay the holidays is not easily solved,” said Sabine. “Our leaders only let us change a little bit of money for the currency of Hungaria. When this is spent we must go home.”
Sabine told me that she had planned a holiday in Budapest while it was still possible. Her younger neighbour in Dresden, Ute, asked if she could come. Ute’s university friend, Helga, joined Sabine and Ute. They carried food from East Germany and asked to stay so they could save money and prolong the trip. I felt embarrassed that we had used their supplies for dinner. I would have to stock the fridge.
The four of us managed well in a small apartment. Sabine and I shared the bedroom. Ute and Helga slept in the living room. By remaining tidy, we could still manoeuvre even though their backpacks occupied half the space.
Sabine had a list of must-see sites. During the day, if I did not work, I led my East German guests on these trips. We wandered through cobblestone streets in the castle district and rode the funicular, with its panoramic view of the city, back down to the river bank. We had tea at Gerbeaud’s in Vörösmarty tér. Inside, time stood still. This spacious coffee house with high ceilings and no trace of Soviet influence attracted many in the city. We lounged on wicker chairs with green cushions. People nearby read newspapers or talked in small groups. Most seemed settled in for the day. Chandeliers hung overhead. We lingered and sampled pastries.
One rainy evening, we had drinks at a local bar, the Fregatt. With its wood panelling and low lights, it was as cozy as the dry, warm lower deck of a ship. I bumped into English and Hungarian friends. The band played. We listened a while, then talked politics and gossiped about friends’ relationships. When I next looked round, I saw Ute in the distance surrounded by young guys in jeans and blazers, that prosperous, stylishly bespectacled look of Bohemian West Germans. Ute, different now, animated in her own language, laughed a lot. Later that night as we lay asleep in our beds, male voices woke us. The West Germans stood on the street by the apartment and shouted for Ute.
Seven days passed quickly. Sabine packed her knapsack for the trip home to Dresden. Ute and Helga asked if they could stay a few days longer.
“No problem,” I replied. I enjoyed their company.
We took Sabine to the train station. When we returned home, Helga, so serious again, said, “We must speak.”
I put the kettle on for tea and then carried the cups through to the living room. Helga sat in one armchair, Ute in another. I perched on the sofa. A small coffee table with a vase of pink bougainvilleas stood between us. Steam rose from our mugs of tea.
“Ute does not want to return home,” Helga said. “She wants to go to West Germany.” Ute watched. She and Helga spoke briefly in German.
“Will you help?” Helga asked. “Ute has an uncle in West Germany. He’ll support her.”
I was stunned and felt foolish. Earlier in the week a friend had joked that I harboured refugees and I joked right back that I had nothing more clandestine than tourists at home. I was so focused on Hungarian politics that I did not notice the big news in my own apartment.
“Does Sabine know about this?” I asked.
“No,” said Helga.
I wondered about the dynamic between Helga, Ute and Sabine. I could not imagine travelling with a friend, even a neighbour, and concealing such significant plans. Maybe inclusion would jeopardize Sabine’s situation in East Germany, or they might just not trust her.
“Are you going as well?” I asked Helga.
“No, I will return home in some days,” she said. “There will be suspicions if I do not go soon.” I wanted to help them, but what they asked might mean breaking the law. I felt confused and needed time to think.
“So why are you going back?” I asked Helga.
“I thought about leaving with Ute,” Helga said, “but the best place for me to make changings is at home.”
She would join an opposition group in East Germany, one that opposed the Communist regime and protested against environmental degradation. Helga hated what she called “disinformation” in university lectures. Humiliated, she said, “You don’t know the feeling to be a second-class human being everywhere and every time because you can’t pay with hard currency.” Such honesty was compelling.
I wondered whether Ute had discussed escape plans with her parents but did not like to ask such a personal question. I just asked why she wanted to leave. Ute simply said, “I don’t feel free.” Our conversations, so halting and broken because of language difficulties, meant that I never really knew Ute. I felt a stronger affinity with Helga, who would not remain long.
Helga and Ute had only seen the good side of Hungary. I felt fairly confident that the reformers would win but could not forget one incident the previous autumn that showed a dark side of Communism still lurked in the system.
A small group of Hungarians had planned a demonstration, a march to the Romanian embassy. They would give the embassy staff there a petition that protested Romania’s treatment of ethnic Hungarians resident in Romania. Sallie, who was an established journalist from London, would cover the march. I worshipped this friend. She epitomized the best in journalism. She was professional, objective and brave with a good code of ethics. The foreign press corps in Budapest remained tiny – no more than half a dozen reporters – so we spent a lot of time together, which served as an informal apprenticeship for me. If she covered the demonstration, I would too.
We met up the road from the embassy where the protesters gathered. The crowd numbered no more than a few hundred people. The organizer made sure that everyone stayed on the sidewalk so traffic flowed well. Then we began walking down the road toward the Romanian embassy. Sallie and I positioned ourselves near the front of the crowd.
I heard people shout rendorszeg [police]. Policemen on motorcycles appeared. Their motorcycles flanked us on three sides. We stopped, trapped between the motorcycles and buildings that lined the sidewalk. Then, through a gap in the rows ahead of me, I saw more riot police with plexiglass visors and shields. They rushed forward and I heard dull thuds as their thick black truncheons struck backs, arms, legs. People in front screamed and pushed their way back to escape. In the confusion, Sallie and I were separated.
I noticed some people held handkerchiefs over their faces. Then my eyes stung. The police had used tear gas. I turned and hunched down, saw a gap between buildings and an alley. I pushed and jostled through the crowd, reached the alley and ran faster than I imagined possible. I ducked into a basement café and rinsed my eyes in the bathroom. Then I stood by a tiny window and looked up at the street. I saw people’s feet as they ran past and then the black boots of policemen who chased them. I ordered a coffee. My hand trembled as I picked up the cup. I hated the police and the government that ordered police action. What had commanders told the men behind visors that made them attack with such vengeance?
I wondered how Ute would be treated if she were caught at the border. I worried but did not discuss the situation with anyone else in case it compromised Ute’s efforts to leave or her future in East Germany, if she returned. East Germans who tried to escape could still be imprisoned; in the past, border guards sometimes shot them. I trusted two people – Sallie and Anna, a Hungarian friend whom I met through my landlady. Both Sallie and Anna were away on holiday.
I respected Anna’s judgment. She also made me feel safe and secure. Every morning I took Buda-bound public transport over the Széchenyi bridge and walked the short distance from Moskva tér to Anna’s apartment. I crossed through a courtyard and entered a quiet world shielded from the bustle of the street, and then into her apartment. Anna usually hovered over the kitchen sink when I arrived. Often she cleaned dirt from vegetables that soaked in a pan. She boiled water for coffee, put cups on a tray with a plate of cookies and we would walk through the dark hallway into the living room.
Natural light poured in from massive windows that faced the street. Anna’s daughter, Juli, a toddler, usually sat on the floor with toys. Sometimes Anna’s husband, Gyula, and their six-year-old son, Dani, would also be home. I loved it there. Anna’s family was my surrogate family for those two years in Budapest.
Over coffee, Anna helped me read the Hungarian papers. She had a sharp mind and good news insights. I looked forward to our morning conversations and wished that Anna was in Budapest so that I could ask for her advice on Ute’s situation.
When Helga left, I felt responsible for Ute. Had someone told me a year earlier that I would help an East German escape I would not have believed it. This would abuse my position as a journalist and breach trust with the paper that sponsored me. It might also be illegal. Most people born in the Eastern Bloc knew many laws made no sense and broke them to survive. Ute’s request sent me down that path, though I felt that I might lose something of myself along the way.
I could see that Ute remained determined not to return. Ill-informed about the situation in East Germany, I did know about some difficulties she would face as a refugee. That winter, I had spent time in Budapest with a twenty-six-year-old Romanian refugee named Victor. We met under a hotel awning in heavy rain. As we waited for it to stop, Victor told me his escape story.
Victor’s girlfriend, a member of the Romanian Securitate secret police, worked in the passport office. Victor persuaded her to get him a passport for what he said would be a short holiday. He stuffed school certificates, which could not be taken out of the country legally, down his trousers and ditched his tour group when he arrived in Hungary. I felt appalled that he betrayed his girlfriend so casually but also admired his resourcefulness and courage, traits common in many refugees that I met. One of his friends swam the Tisza River twice to escape from Romania. He was shot at, apprehended and imprisoned the first time, but succeeded the second.
As I came to know Victor and his friends I observed their lives in Budapest, struck by their vigilance, which verged on paranoia. They believed that the Securitate operated in Budapest and kept them under surveillance. Victor never returned home through the front door. He always entered via a back courtyard and climbed in a window to shake off anyone who might tail him.
Would Ute have to live like this? I did not and could not discuss it. Our lack of a common language meant that we still communicated on the most rudimentary level only. In some way, after all this time together, we remained strangers who shared an apartment. I needed someone trustworthy to bridge the language barrier. I telephoned a student, Zsolt. He sometimes translated Hungarian for me. He also spoke German. Zsolt had a square build and scratchy goatee and was helpful and reliable. He came over immediately.
When the bell rang, I ran down.
“Thank you so much,” I said and explained the situation as we climbed the stairs.
“She will be caught and thrown in jail. It will be a disaster,” said Zsolt.
I couldn’t deny this possibility but also discounted Zsolt’s comments given his predisposition for pessimism and hyperbole. Often when we attended demonstrations, Zsolt insisted that security service agents were following us and might arrest us. Such intrigue appealed to his imagination. I enjoyed Zsolt’s company despite this focus on doom.
Zsolt sat in the armchair that had been Sabine’s favourite. He grimaced when Ute explained her predicament and ran his hands through his lank blond hair. Zsolt and Ute spoke to one another in German. I only understood the word “Stasi,” the name for the East German secret police. During their brief conversation, Zsolt mentioned the word “Stasi” at least six times.
“Let me think about the situation,” Zsolt said. “I’ll telephone someone with connections tonight.”
I did not press him for details.
Zsolt arrived at 9 a.m. the next morning. When I let him in he said, “I saw a car with unmarked licence plates parked outside. The driver’s watching your entrance.” I didn’t respond.
“You’re being monitored by the security services.” Normally I acknowledged his latest espionage theory and then changed subjects, but today such speculation disturbed me. I did not want to hear it. We sat around the coffee table. Zsolt pulled an ink-blotched sheet of paper from his bag with a telephone number scrawled across the top.
“A border runner’s co-ordinates,” he told me in English. Then he translated and told Ute that for a fee, the border runner would take her to fields by the Austrian border near where Anna and I saw a portion of the Iron Curtain dis
mantled and lead her from Hungary into Austria at a remote and, he claimed, rarely patrolled location. A risky option, I thought.
As Ute absorbed the information, Zsolt detailed pitfalls in the plan. The border runner would flee with Ute’s money, leaving her destitute and stranded. A bleak assessment, but I sensed Zsolt’s full engagement and that he would help Ute escape.
Another option emerged. Ute often spent time in a neighbourhood adjacent to the West German embassy. Reluctant to approach the embassy, she thought that East German security agents photographed everyone who entered, so they could identify potential East German escapees. On her outings, Ute met other East Germans, also “on holiday” in Budapest. The West German government allowed East Germans West German passports. Some of the people that Ute had met applied for them inside the West German embassy. Since they knew they could not obtain an exit visa from the Hungarian government, which they needed in order to leave Hungary for a Western country, these East Germans declared themselves refugees once inside the West German embassy and refused to leave the embassy grounds. Ute opted for this tactic.
A line of like-minded East Germans now stretched down the road by the embassy. An official gave Ute a number and said she should return in three days for her embassy appointment. She felt nervous because she had seen men on nearby rooftops who photographed people in line.
I tried to distract Ute. She liked bars, especially the Fregatt. We went back. Once there, I suspected that she had bar-hopped earlier in the trip to find a Westerner who might marry her to help her escape. A day before her embassy appointment we returned home from the Fregatt around midnight. I turned the radio on. The BBC news reader said that the West German embassy in Budapest had now closed its doors to East Germans, citing overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. This, despite assurances from embassy officials that they would review Ute’s case. What a betrayal. I told Ute. She panicked. I also felt on edge.