This is my third week in custody. No prospect of anything. After breakfast, it’s off to the “Klapper” as usual – paper sacks, Bakelite, pins, nuts and bolts. At some point, yard walk, lunch and dinner. All Quit in the Eastern Jail.
“Why now of all times?” Jรผrgen wants to know. In the spring of 1983, I received my “request for mustering”. After various skirmishes with the police, Stasi, party soldiers, district court and arbitration commission, the time was right to start my “straight ahead escape” while I was still young and robust enough to endure the risks and side effects. The only catch – I was not yet 18 …
December 1983: Finally of age. What I want to do now, my mother asked. Run away to the West, I replied. She remained silent, as if she had expected nothing else. No horrified speechlessness as usual after harsh words. Just a damn grown-up conversation. Perhaps our last in our entire lives.
Before I end up at the police station in Schwedt because of some shit and bigwigs concrete over my life, I’ll try it, I added. She remained composed. No contradiction. That was all she wanted to know.
When my training will be over in six months, I’d end up in some shack just like my brother, get a girl pregnant at the next opportunity and marry her, just to maybe get a better hovel with the option of prefabricated housing.
And as soon as the child need me, I would be drafted and later torn out of my miserable world again and again as a reservist until I was completely adapted and finally rusty for big changes. Better to force my luck now than spend the rest of my life hoping for a better one. ๐ฃ๐ธ ๐๐ฎ ๐๐ธ๐ท๐ฝ๐ฒ๐ท๐พ๐ฎ๐ญโฆ
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