TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/101689/10168900.047

Text File | 1990-09-19 | 4KB | 66 lines

WORLD, Page 43

Seizing the Moment


    It took the Breite family barely 24 hours to abandon everything
they knew and bolt for a new life in the West. Though their
discontent had been brewing for years, Olaf, 28, and Marlies, 26,
had never seriously contemplated leaving their East German village
of Schonermark, near Potsdam, until Sept. 11. That night, shortly
after midnight, Hungary began permitting East German refugees to
cross over en masse into Austria. The Breites watched West German
television coverage of the Great Escape and realized that the Iron
Curtain had parted, but that it could be drawn shut again at any
moment. By lunchtime the following day, they were preparing to
leave.

    To avoid raising suspicions, Olaf, a roofer, returned to work
after their midday decision. Marlies headed to the bank, where she
withdrew nearly all their savings and converted just enough of it
into Czech currency, she explains, "to allow us to pretend to
border officials that we were going to Czechoslovakia for a short
vacation." Because they were afraid to expose their plans even to
friends and family, there was no one to bid them farewell at 9 that
night, when they piled their children -- Christian, 5, Susann, 3,
and Katrin, 9 months -- into their worn getaway car, a 1972 Fiat.
They packed just a pair of knapsacks, then took off on what would
be a five-day odyssey to the West.

    Crossing into Czechoslovakia was no problem. But entering
Hungary required an East German exit permit they did not have. The
Breites had to abandon the car and ford a river under cover of
darkness. Sympathetic Czechs led them to a spot on the Ipoly, a
shallow Danube tributary, where other East Germans were making the
same trek. Olaf carried two children across; Marlies toted the
third. On the Hungarian side, their luck held. Though it was 3:30
a.m., a bus happened by. "There were other refugees inside,"
Marlies recalls. "And we kept picking up people all along the
route."

    After a rail hop to Budapest and a $76 cab ride across the
Austrian border, they reached Vienna, where they sent relatives a
postcard explaining what they had done. From Vienna, the West
German embassy sent them to a transit camp near Munster in the
Federal Republic, where Olaf was quickly offered a roofing job in
nearby Ochtrup. He finds the money much better than his old pay --
18 West German marks ($9.50) an hour, vs. 5.4 East German marks
($2.85 at the official exchange rate). "The materials, equipment
and technology are as different as night and day," says Olaf. "Here
you use cranes and power drills. There, muscle, hammer and chisel."

    While good jobs are not hard to come by in the Federal
Republic, where skilled labor is in short supply, good housing is
another matter. Unlike many of their fellow refugees, the Breites
again got lucky. Through a Catholic social-welfare organization,
they were able to rent a five-room furnished bungalow on a
tree-lined street. "We expected a small apartment, not this," says
a delighted Marlies.

    In the East, the Breites had been frustrated in their plans to
buy a home, but it was not this that drove them West. "It is the
yearning for the little luxuries that are daily conveniences here,"
Marlies explains. "The daily irritations keep building up in you
-- no bananas, bread only in the morning, standing in line." While
they save for a new car, Olaf bikes to work. But they already have
a new color TV and -- something they did without at home -- a
telephone. "It's like a fairy tale," sighs Marlies. "But we are
getting used to it."