arents were still living in East Berlin, that neither of them was a member of the Communist Party, and that he had belonged to none of the Communist youth organizations. After finishing the eighth grade, he was sent to a trade school but soon left to go to work in a steel mill. On his day off, he used to come to West Berlin to earn extra money by working in the wholesale fruit-and-vegetable market. He said that he had tried to keep this activity secret, because it was frowned upon by the East German authorities, who called it Schwarzarbeit (black work). One night a week or two after the wall went up, he was returning home late after celebrating a friend’s birthday. He had drunk too much and was being noisy on the street. Two Vopos stopped him and asked for his identity card, which he gave them. They then searched him and found ten marks in his wallet. They returned the identity card but kept the ten marks. The youth said that this made him angry, and he quarrelled with the Vopos. They arrested him, and the police subsequently found out about his record of “black work.” He said that this was a bad mark against him, and that he was sentenced to a youth prison for an indefinite term. The official asked on what charge he had been tried. “I don’t remember the paragraph of the law,” he replied, “but it was something about acting against the state.” He was released last May, and soon afterward began working out a plan to flee to West Berlin with three friends. They began their escape shortly before ten o’clock on a starless summer night, he said, and planned to cross the border in the vicinity of Teltow. He was not asked to be more explicit. By one o’clock, he said, he and one of his comrades were in West Berlin. The official asked, “What became of the other two?” The youth replied, “I don’t know. I guess they were caught.” The official looked through the youth’s dossier, and then told him that he would be registered the following day as a citizen of West Berlin. The youth rose, thanked the official, and left.
Max shook his head. “I don’t know about him,” he said. “He could be capable of anything.”
The second refugee was an elderly, thin-faced woman who wore a long pale-blue coat and a white scarf and carried a straw purse nearly as large as a shopping bag. Her ears had been pierced, and she was wearing small gold earrings. As she sat, with her hands folded in her lap, her tiny bright-blue eyes darted about the room, and she looked like a frightened bird. She was the widow of a carpenter who had been killed as a soldier during the war. Until 1960, she had lived with her son, an official in the East Berlin government. Then he had fled to West Berlin. The official asked why. “He had a responsible position, but they asked too much of him,” the widow replied. “In his heart, he was different.” After he had left, she went on, she changed her apartment, but the Party functionaries located her and called her in for questioning. “I had to answer all kinds of questions,” she said. “They shouted, ‘Tell the truth!’ But I didn’t say much. They let me go but said I would have to come back again and answer more questions. Then I was afraid. I knew I must have the courage to leave, but I couldn’t make myself do it, and then they built the wall.” The widow wet her lips and pushed up the hair at one side of her head. The official asked when she had arrived in West Berlin. “I was fetched at eleven o’clock at night,” she said. “I was put in a box, and it was nailed up and put on a truck. At the crossing point, I was scared. My God, I thought, what will become of me. At two o’clock, the box was opened, and I was in West Berlin. I am so glad to be here. I will be seventy years old in three weeks.” She said she was living with her son, who had found a job as a clerk. She sat and watched intently while the examiner thumbed through her dossier. “Tomorrow,” he said, “you will be registered as a citizen of West Berlin.” The widow smiled, looked around the room, and nodded to each of us. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, everybody.” Picking up her straw 