2 - “So much of the really good life was lost to us…”

Summary

On the basis of the upbringing I received from my parents, it was a foregone conclusion that I would join the Party. Actually, it's criminal to say something like that when you look at the machinations of the Party today. But at that point in time, it seemed to me that the Party represented very worthy aims.

In school, I was always an organized and reliable student, and of course I was a member of the Pioneer organization.

I also remember very well the circumstances surrounding the building of the “antifascist protective barrier.” I thought it was a logical step to take. My parents explained that the Eastern part of Berlin would be ruined, that there was spying going on anyway, that food was cheap here and was being illegally exported by West Germany, that doctors and scientists were being lured away. The protective barrier was necessary so that this country could be rebuilt in peace. Everyone was still marked by the war and we all had the same bases on which to begin a new life in this, our country. We wanted to live together without exploitation. That was also the reason I later joined the Party.

Throughout my entire childhood I was especially influenced by movies, by the content and messages that were transmitted through them. These were movies about the war, about the time before 1945, movies that portrayed fascism. I said to myself: “Something like that must never happen again.”

My dad wasn't a soldier. He was too young for that. Born in 1929. I know he almost starved during the war, because the town of M. took heavy bombing. After the war, he trained as a carpenter, then studied at a college of state administration and law, and later became a professor at the same college, teaching people to be mayors. I am trained as a preschool teacher. I found working with children a lot of fun back then. Of course, we had an educational plan. And there was some kind of contact with the army. Every year on the “Day of the National People's Army,” our preschool would be in touch with one soldier.