Page 78 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

"No one knows how many."

Escapers swam across canals and rivers, they climbed barbed wire, they hid in cars and trucks. West Germans, who were allowed into East Berlin, brought forged West German passports for their relatives. Allied troops could go anywhere, so one East German man bought a U.S. army uniform at a theatrical costume shop and walked through a checkpoint unchallenged.

Rebecca said: "And many die."

The border guards showed no mercy and no shame. They shot to kill. They sometimes left the wounded to bleed to death in no-man's-land, as a lesson to others. Death was the penalty for trying to leave the Communist paradise.

Rebecca and Bernd were planning to escape via Bernauer Strasse.

One of the grim ironies of the Wall was that in some streets the buildings were in East Berlin but the sidewalk was in the West. Residents of the east side of Bernauer Strasse had opened their front doors on Sunday, August 13, 1961, to find a barbed-wire fence preventing them from stepping outside. At first, many leaped from upstairs windows to freedom--some injuring themselves, others jumping onto a blanket held by West Berlin firemen. Now all those buildings had been evacuated, their doors and windows boarded up.

Rebecca and Bernd had a different plan.

They got dressed and went down to breakfast with the family--probably their last for a long time. It was a tense repeat of the same meal on August 13 last year. On that occasion the family had been sad and anxious: Rebecca had been planning to leave, but not at the risk of her life. This time they were scared.

Rebecca tried to be cheerful. "Maybe you'll all follow us across the border one day," she said.

Carla said: "You know we aren't going to do that. You must go--you have no life left here. But we're staying."

"What about Father's work?"

"For now,

I carry on," Werner said. He was no longer able to go to the factory he owned because it was in West Berlin. He was trying to manage it remotely, but that was nearly impossible. There was no telephone service between the two Berlins, so he had to do everything by mail, which was always liable to be delayed by the censors.

This was agony for Rebecca. Her family was the most important thing in the world to her, but she was being forced to leave them. "Well, no wall lasts forever," she said. "One day Berlin will be reunited, and then we can be together again."

There was a ring at the doorbell, and Lili jumped up from the table. Werner said: "I hope that's the postman with the factory accounts."

Walli said: "I'm going to cross the Wall as soon as I can. I'm not going to spend my life in the East, with some old Communist telling me what music to play."

Carla said: "You can make your own decision--as soon as you're an adult."

Lili came back into the kitchen looking scared. "It's not the postman," she said. "It's Hans."

Rebecca let out a small scream. Surely her estranged husband could not know about her escape plan?

Werner said: "Is he alone?"

"I think so."

Grandma Maud said to Carla: "Remember how we dealt with Joachim Koch?"

Carla looked at the children. Obviously they were not supposed to know how Joachim Koch had been dealt with.

Werner went to the kitchen cupboard and opened the bottom drawer. It contained heavy pans. He pulled the drawer all the way out and set it on the floor. Then he reached deep into the cavity and brought out a black pistol with a brown grip and a small box of ammunition.

Bernd said: "Jesus."

Rebecca did not know much about guns, but she thought it was a Walther P38. Werner must have kept it after the war.

What had happened to Joachim Koch, Rebecca wondered? Had he been killed?

By Mother? And Grandma?

Werner said to Rebecca: "If Hans Hoffmann takes you out of this house we will never see you again." Then he began to load the gun.

Carla said: "He may not be here to arrest Rebecca."

---