frizztext: maybe I’m allowed to add, that my mother committed suicide by hanging; but she used a wrong technique; she struggled half an hour, the doctors said, till she was dead at last…
a part of my biography:
A point of view: When I was born in 1945, my mother, a German armed forces helper on the way from Prague (deep South) up to an isle named “Ruegen” (in the very North, Baltic Sea), in the middle of her long journey through a breaking down Germany: she gave birth to me and, after one day in a hospital, she passed me on to a children’s home (in a town called “Wuppertal”, West-Germany) – and left me to my fate.
So she robbed me (among others) the experience of a childhood in the GDR, German Democratic Republic, “Wuppertal” should be “West-Germany” (American sector), the isle of Ruegen became Russian sector, behind the “Iron Curtain“.
So I did not learn anything about socialism, communism, STASI (the secret police) or summer camps of young “Pioneers”. In the Western hemisphere I grew up, drinking Pepsi Coke, receiving American Care packages, later on: listened to the Beatles, noticed the students movement in 1968, had no Walter Ulbricht or Erich Honecker, but chancellor Willy Brandt and Helmut Kohl.
But I tried to find out the place, where the woman could live, who had born me in that dark year 1945. After 40 years of persistent search, 1985, before the Berlin Wall fell (1989), I found out: She was living behind the “Iron Curtain” on the isle of Ruegen.
I took my OPEL car and drove from West-Germany (crossing the “Iron Curtain”-frontier) to communist’s East-Germany, the “GDR”, motivated to take a look at this lost childhood, which I did not enjoy: She (after hugging) showed me her photo album: summer beach near “Kap Arkona” at the north-point of the isle, snowy winters on Hiddensee, flight ducks, cranes – but on the other hand coal heaps on washed-out sidewalks. Colour films (Orwo), books, Trabi (the typical GDR-automobile) substitute parts: only hard to get.
Nevertheless, I wanted to make up for my life in the GDR – when (in 1990) the Berlin Wall was fallen: A schools inspector on the island pointed into a corridor, filled with former Stasi employees (security police) and informed me in this manner in an almost dumb “cadre conversation”, he unfortunately (thanks to the “reunification” of East and West-Germany) would have to hide many people in the teaching profession now (the former STASI persons). I should return please to West-Germany, where I just had come from. The direction of my journey seemed to be absolutely atypically, out of character, and not recommendable. No “Ossi” (vs. “Wessi”) – no job.
As a result my mother, noticing, that all her dreams collapsed, joined an acute epidemic disease at that time: She committed a so-called balance sheets suicide. I was deprived of the chance to become a “zone child” a second time. Did I miss really much?
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compare the version in German language, my book-review on that topic at amazon.de
www.amazon.de/review/R1J881FW5E4GHY
ZONENKINDER
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