Interesting Fellow-Travelers
One our recent train trip, one of the pleasures was meeting interesting people. Twice I heard accounts of people who escaped Communist East Germany at great risk and sacrifice.
We heard one account from a couple we shared a table with in the dining car. I overheard them speak German and commented that I was hearing a few familiar words, and that I would love to know German as well as they obviously did. The lady, who did most of the talking, said, "We have lived in this country for over 40 years, but now that we're old, we're also lazy, so we often speak German to each other." She subsequently admonished her husband (speaking emphatically into his hearing aid) to "act nice and speak English to these wonderful people." Living in Albuquerque, she has had lots of exposure to other immigrants, and has a strong opinion about their need to learn English as soon as possible. She obviously has some personal credibility in expressing this opinion.
I asked a few questions about where in Germany they had lived, and got a passionate account of how terrible life became for them under Communism. Her husband's family owned a large furniture making business, which was nationalized. Perhaps because the family was wealthy, they were targeted, and the woman's father-in-law was imprisoned for three years. His health was broken and he died soon after he was released. In the late 60's permission was still granted sometimes to East Germans who wished to shop in West Berlin. This was allowed because there was a need for goods that were not available in the Eastern sector. So our woman storyteller, when she was young-married, crossed the border into West Berlin one day, leaving her husband behind. She never returned to East Germany until after the wall fell. Her husband attempted three days after her crossing to do the same, but he was detained, along with many others who had attempted the same thing. For three weeks he was held, and then one day he tried again, and this time he was allowed to cross. He joined his wife in West Berlin, and they asked for and were granted asylum in the United States.
This woman finished by saying, "Some people say 'Oh Communism is not so bad.' They don't know. It's horrible, except for a very few people at the top, for whom it's very good. Right now, what's going on in Georgia. . . That's terrible. I can't believe people don't see that."
Kay, a woman from Wichita, told us the other escape-from-East Germany story. Her father had family members in America. When one of them died, he inherited some of their ranch land in Montana. There was only one problem. He could not get permission to leave East Germany to come to America to claim his inheritance. Through working with international attorneys, he learned that all American assets owned by East Germans were about to be nationalized. (I understood that this meant that America was about to take possession of his inheritance. I can find no evidence that this actually ever happened.) But when he got that word, he set about to marry his girlfriend very quickly, and he and his new bride rented and furnished an apartment, knowing all the while that they must do this so as not to arouse suspicion regarding their plans. They told no one except their parents what they were about to do, and their parents did not know until just before they left East Germany. They used the method also of going to West Berlin to shop, except they did so on the same day, but separately. Things went smoothly and they immigrated and went straight to Montana to their relatives.
I asked Kay if she had encountered or noticed any stereotypes or common characteristics of Germans. (By this time she knew that I also claimed German background.) She said her husband says German women are domineering, and she acknowledged that her mother and grandmother were indeed domineering. She said she tries to be submissive to her husband as she believes Christian women ought to be, but she ruefully admitted that her husband considers her too much like other German women. I laughed to myself, remembering the German woman in the dining car who admonished her husband to "be nice" while she busily went on talking and expressing opinions right and left--delightfully so, in my opinion, but, granted, in a domineering fashion. I had never heard about this stereotype.
Kay also told us about some really heartbreaking things that her mother saw and experienced when the Russians overran the city where her mother lived. By this time a lot of hatred had built up because the Germans had once occupied Russia, and had treated the Russians contemptuously. Now the Russians were exacting revenge. Most of the German people knew that a terrible fate awaited them if they fell into Russian hands, and they resolved not to be victimized. Kay's mother's grandmother, to whom she was very close, committed suicide by hanging herself. As a 13-year-old girl, she saw a man fall to his death right in front of her on a city sidewalk. He had jumped out of a high window intentionally. Women were being raped--some repeatedly, and then a soldier came for Kay's mother. An older woman intervened and said, "Leave the children alone. Take me." So he did. He was the third one who had done so. Kay's mother put into her mouth the cyanide pill she had been given for just such a time. But she had second thoughts and spit it out. Almost everyone she knew had cyanide pills in their possession.
The third memorable person I met was riding the Chicago city transit system just as I was. She was obviously Asian and looked frightened and near tears. I sat beside her and finally asked if she was from Chicago. She said no and I told her I wasn't from there either. She was from China and had come to America to join her husband who was at a university in one of the Carolinas. She was touring the city during a long layover in her flight schedule. She was not fluent in English, but much more so than I am in Chinese. I learned that she has one child, a 14-year-old son who had stayed in China. "In China, we are allowed to have only one child."
Without thinking, I blurted, "I think that's so sad." I told her about my parental family of 12 children--ten homemade and two adopted, and about our three sons and our country home.
"That would be so much fun," she said.
She told me what her exit point was on the transit line, and I watched the signs and told her when we got to the right place.
"Goodbye. You are so kind," she said as she got off, turned around and waved once more.
Lord, please bring other kind people into her life, and help her to meet You in America.
We heard one account from a couple we shared a table with in the dining car. I overheard them speak German and commented that I was hearing a few familiar words, and that I would love to know German as well as they obviously did. The lady, who did most of the talking, said, "We have lived in this country for over 40 years, but now that we're old, we're also lazy, so we often speak German to each other." She subsequently admonished her husband (speaking emphatically into his hearing aid) to "act nice and speak English to these wonderful people." Living in Albuquerque, she has had lots of exposure to other immigrants, and has a strong opinion about their need to learn English as soon as possible. She obviously has some personal credibility in expressing this opinion.
I asked a few questions about where in Germany they had lived, and got a passionate account of how terrible life became for them under Communism. Her husband's family owned a large furniture making business, which was nationalized. Perhaps because the family was wealthy, they were targeted, and the woman's father-in-law was imprisoned for three years. His health was broken and he died soon after he was released. In the late 60's permission was still granted sometimes to East Germans who wished to shop in West Berlin. This was allowed because there was a need for goods that were not available in the Eastern sector. So our woman storyteller, when she was young-married, crossed the border into West Berlin one day, leaving her husband behind. She never returned to East Germany until after the wall fell. Her husband attempted three days after her crossing to do the same, but he was detained, along with many others who had attempted the same thing. For three weeks he was held, and then one day he tried again, and this time he was allowed to cross. He joined his wife in West Berlin, and they asked for and were granted asylum in the United States.
This woman finished by saying, "Some people say 'Oh Communism is not so bad.' They don't know. It's horrible, except for a very few people at the top, for whom it's very good. Right now, what's going on in Georgia. . . That's terrible. I can't believe people don't see that."
Kay, a woman from Wichita, told us the other escape-from-East Germany story. Her father had family members in America. When one of them died, he inherited some of their ranch land in Montana. There was only one problem. He could not get permission to leave East Germany to come to America to claim his inheritance. Through working with international attorneys, he learned that all American assets owned by East Germans were about to be nationalized. (I understood that this meant that America was about to take possession of his inheritance. I can find no evidence that this actually ever happened.) But when he got that word, he set about to marry his girlfriend very quickly, and he and his new bride rented and furnished an apartment, knowing all the while that they must do this so as not to arouse suspicion regarding their plans. They told no one except their parents what they were about to do, and their parents did not know until just before they left East Germany. They used the method also of going to West Berlin to shop, except they did so on the same day, but separately. Things went smoothly and they immigrated and went straight to Montana to their relatives.
I asked Kay if she had encountered or noticed any stereotypes or common characteristics of Germans. (By this time she knew that I also claimed German background.) She said her husband says German women are domineering, and she acknowledged that her mother and grandmother were indeed domineering. She said she tries to be submissive to her husband as she believes Christian women ought to be, but she ruefully admitted that her husband considers her too much like other German women. I laughed to myself, remembering the German woman in the dining car who admonished her husband to "be nice" while she busily went on talking and expressing opinions right and left--delightfully so, in my opinion, but, granted, in a domineering fashion. I had never heard about this stereotype.
Kay also told us about some really heartbreaking things that her mother saw and experienced when the Russians overran the city where her mother lived. By this time a lot of hatred had built up because the Germans had once occupied Russia, and had treated the Russians contemptuously. Now the Russians were exacting revenge. Most of the German people knew that a terrible fate awaited them if they fell into Russian hands, and they resolved not to be victimized. Kay's mother's grandmother, to whom she was very close, committed suicide by hanging herself. As a 13-year-old girl, she saw a man fall to his death right in front of her on a city sidewalk. He had jumped out of a high window intentionally. Women were being raped--some repeatedly, and then a soldier came for Kay's mother. An older woman intervened and said, "Leave the children alone. Take me." So he did. He was the third one who had done so. Kay's mother put into her mouth the cyanide pill she had been given for just such a time. But she had second thoughts and spit it out. Almost everyone she knew had cyanide pills in their possession.
The third memorable person I met was riding the Chicago city transit system just as I was. She was obviously Asian and looked frightened and near tears. I sat beside her and finally asked if she was from Chicago. She said no and I told her I wasn't from there either. She was from China and had come to America to join her husband who was at a university in one of the Carolinas. She was touring the city during a long layover in her flight schedule. She was not fluent in English, but much more so than I am in Chinese. I learned that she has one child, a 14-year-old son who had stayed in China. "In China, we are allowed to have only one child."
Without thinking, I blurted, "I think that's so sad." I told her about my parental family of 12 children--ten homemade and two adopted, and about our three sons and our country home.
"That would be so much fun," she said.
She told me what her exit point was on the transit line, and I watched the signs and told her when we got to the right place.
"Goodbye. You are so kind," she said as she got off, turned around and waved once more.
Lord, please bring other kind people into her life, and help her to meet You in America.
posted by Mrs. I at
6:32 PM
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