Читать книгу Horse´s Hoof and Heaven - Carmen Paul - Страница 5

I was not especially brought up to ‘believe in God’. It was ingrained in me that I was the one who did the achieving, and I wasn’t to rely on anyone else apart from myself.

I was a dedicated “Young Pioneer”. This title was used for those in the 1st to 4th years at school who were on the first steps of the ladder to becoming a fully-fledged communist youth. The next stage in this process for those in the 4th to 7th years was called a Thälmann pioneer, again I was dedicated to this cause.

Everything we needed at that stage in our education was laid on for us – school, children’s centres for after school, entertainment during the school holidays, and proper children’s camps during that time as well. Everything was put on for us as a matter of course, but only later on in my schooldays, did I realise that there were ulterior motives behind it all. All we had to do was just “play along”.

The child-friendly system of the German Democratic Republic (former East Germany) exerted full control over my life, which I just took for granted. There were several incidences which made me pause for thought, concluding that something ‘just wasn’t quite right with it all’(i.e. the essay on my pen), however I was far too deeply engrained in the system as a whole to really be able to stick my neck out and seriously air my grievances.

Communism as it really was

Towards the end of my school years I had still set my sights on becoming a vet. Nevertheless, before I was able to embark on my dream career, studying for it in Meißen, I had to have practical training related to working with animals. I could have decided to work in a zoo, becoming certified as having done such a job, but clad in dungarees looking after monkeys, elephants, crocodiles, and zebras was not my ideal

I could work for the same qualification at the LPG, private farmers and farmhands officially being deemed no longer to exist. My main venue would be at the technical college, and to my dismay in the cowsheds.

Now I was able to experience counter side of communism. Everything that I had been taught and painstakingly learnt about communism over the years at school and what I actually saw in practice simply didn’t match up. Theory and practice had become contradictory to me.

Whenever the trainer noticed that he or she had a conscientious and diligent worker on their hands, they were used as easy labour for adults in every aspect of working in the cowsheds so that they could casually take two or three days off at a time. This gradually angered me, and I began to give vent to my rebellious feelings. Eventually I was moved to another training place under a fully dedicated communist manager which at first I treated as rather exciting, quickly giving way to feeling harassed. Nowadays I am glad that I been through this all, so that I can better empathise and thus help those who likewise have had the same sort of experience.

This is an example of the absurd nature of the communist system in former East Germany: On a rainy Monday morning while still living at my mother’s flat in Löbau I made my way half-asleep to the bus stop, having an early morning shift. To reach the bus stop I had to circumvent crossroads, where one was supposed to have crossed over one road at a time, but I was simply too lazy for that. I slipped diagonally over the road in my conspicuous yellow raincoat given to me by my uncle in west Germany with the prominent sticker of the growing youth peace movement in East Germany(a sword being knocked into a claw of a plough) on the front.

Unfortunately, I had omitted to see the policeman present there. He stopped me in my tracks, issued me with the standard torrent of abuse, but only once he spotted this sticker on my raincoat! He was angry at the sight of this, bellowing at me the whole time, making it quite clear that if I didn’t take off this disgraceful article of clothing representing the evil capitalism from the West he would see to it straight away that I would be wearing prison uniform with its standard yellow stripes instead.

I was so flabbergasted by this onslaught of abuse that a thousand things went through my mind, most of all the fact that I’d left my picnic breakfast for the day behind at home! The policeman issued me with an on the spot 20 Mark fine for having taken a short cut over the road junction; as it was not permitted under any circumstances.

I had to take seriously the fact that he was in a position to send me to jail, not because of my infringement of the traffic regulations, but because of the offending sticker; however much worse than that was having left my breakfast behind! I shoved the 20 Marks into his hand. This was a lot of money to me, enough for a month’s rent, or indeed what it would cost for half a pound of coffee (not readily available in the former East Germany, and thus expensive). Then I took off the offending raincoat, handing it over to him with a sarcastic laugh (“have fun with it”) – turning again to the road junction I proceeded to slink back over it diagonally as I’d done before, in order to fetch my picnic breakfast from home !

On my return I took a different route to get to the bus stop – one could never tell what would happen.

The qualifying exam in gym shorts

At last the day of the qualifying exam came round; I thought “that will be the end of that”. On that day I dressed in my blue shirt (standard uniform for the youth pioneers), and jeans (Levi’s which were standard issue from West Germany) and set off for the training college. I decided to wear gym shorts underneath my jeans just in case, which turned out to be a wise move. One of the teachers there noticed my jeans, and couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. How dare I turn up in capitalist jeans for an exam for the communist system, and what’s more, coupled with a bright blue pioneer shirt!(that colour match was in any case an eyesore, but that wasn’t the point then).

The college director was summoned, and I had to undergo another torrent of abuse. “Of all days to do this!” The pair of them were utterly at one in this case – I should go back home immediately and change, come back and then I would be allowed to sit the qualifying exam.

I looked both of them in the eye, and then simply burst out laughing, unable to help it. At that precise moment I saw right through it all, this ridiculous communist system, with this teacher utterly taken in by it, and proceeded to take off my trousers right in front of them both. I asked them to take good care of my jeans and went back to my exam place wearing my pioneer shirt and gym shorts. After the exam was over, I collected my jeans from the teacher, and proceeded to wear them again. Then it was the shirt’s turn; “I don’t need this anymore; you can wear it yourself”!

Of course, I realised by now that my dream career of becoming a vet was not going to happen. I felt that my undying devotion to this “faithful workers and farmers” state had radically changed into pure hatred for the regime. I had to discipline myself in order that this wouldn’t spill out into open rebellion.

After this exam I worked in a milking station in Herwigsdorf. A milking station is an enormous technically equipped up to date barn where the cows were systematically milked. We did not work split shifts there, but either the early morning shift or the late afternoon one.

My two favourite work colleagues

It took me a while to come to terms with the fact that I wouldn’t be able to “make animals better”, however I swore to myself that it would be better to be honest with myself as opposed to living out a permanent lie. This motto helped me through this inward pain I felt.

I managed to retain a lot of what I had learnt from Mrs Doctor. Looking back it was a gratifying time, and although I wasn’t allowed to pursue my desire to be a vet as a career, I am still able to apply what I learnt in a practical sense. My love for animals has not diminished, and still having some skill to this day means that I can apply self-help when problems arise.

In Herwigsdorf I had some nice work colleagues, but two of them stood out in particular as being special to me. One of them was Christine, who started her job two years after I did; we went through thick and thin together and she is still one of my best friends today.

Christine was brought up in a communist household, but this was somehow different from the other communist families I knew. I found it fascinating just how she spoke out against injustice, although sometimes being too forthright and loud, but this is exactly what I liked about her.

The people I know who on the one hand stand by their ideology, but on the other hand are so kind and caring are few in number. Communism is to some a kind of ‘raison d’être’, being practiced as assiduously as any religious faith, but one which was doomed to failure, as the world over has witnessed within the past thirty years. Both of us have managed to tolerate our very different ‘beliefs’ to this day, without one of us wanting to win over the other or somehow consider one or other of them as being somehow superior.

Oh how much I desire Christine to discover the love of Jesus for herself – I’m still hopeful for that!

A tug of war

The other lady I got to know in Herwigsdorf who played a very important role in my life was called Hanna. Hanna was a boisterous lady, but somehow completely different from the others. Hanna expressed herself well to encourage or rebuke anyone or even show that she liked you. She was extremely patient and displayed an inbred humility that made me ask myself what she had which others plainly didn’t have.

She was the kind of person who could hold your hand without saying anything and one would be simply feel her warmth. She had a hearty laugh, likewise inviting you to join in even if you didn’t feel like it.

And Hanna had perseverance! For nearly a year she would invite me to her Bible evenings, and for nearly a year I would issue her with a various excuses why I was unable to attend, but feeling like a fish swimming around in a shallow net. However, in this particular year I was the object of a tug of war – on the one end was Hanna with her ongoing invitations to come to her Bible group, at the other end was the local communist secretary urging me every week to return to wearing my pioneer’s blue shirt, even tempting me with membership of the SED (the main communist party).

Becoming a member of the official communist party was not exactly a foregone conclusion. One needed two members of the communist party to vouch for my ‘impeccable’ character, and then after a trial year one’s membership of the party would be decided upon, either receiving an offer, or being rejected. What I simply couldn’t grasp was just how this communist official could ever have perceived that I would change my mind!

Disgraceful

This constant tug of war finally brought me to the point of accepting Hanna’s offer. Hanna explained to me that this particular evening would be special, hosting a prominent guest, Pastor Morgenstern from the Brotherhood of the Moravian Church. Well, I thought to myself “I’ll go just once, then I’ll be able to tell my friend Hanna that it wasn’t my cup of tea” – who on earth could possibly believe in all that hocus-pocus anyway !

It transpired that Hanna had also invited another of my work colleagues along, likewise having gone on and on at her, so we made a pact: the two of us would just get it over and done with for once and for all. It was a bitterly cold evening, but the Heinz family had heated their lounge especially for the occasion, and we were well received on arrival. Looking around there seemed to be exclusively old ladies there, apart from Hanna and her sister Ursel, the manager of the milking parlour which we worked in, and us two. The four of us were the youngest there that evening by a long way.

The pastor arrived and greeted us all warmly, but then announced that the Lord had ‘told him’ that we should be reading a different chapter from the Bible than he originally planned. What, I gasped to myself, was all this about God speaking to human beings, and human being actually hearing ‘words from up on high’?

I managed to get a grip of myself though. The pastor opened his Bible and read a passage out loud – this was a story about Jesus, of course, and some woman, seemingly without a name. I sat there and simply could not believe what I was hearing! What on earth was this story that he was reading? I began to boil over with rage and felt like escaping there and then; what a nerve this man had, this story was actually about me!

Images were flashing across my mind, things which up to then I had just accepted as normal, but by now I just couldn’t restrain myself any longer. Up till that point in my life I had been playing fast and loose with my own body, having casual sex with anyone who took my fancy, no matter whether they were married or not. Not only did this pastor appear to be holding a mirror in front of me, that was bad enough, but on top of this all these old women lapped up details of what was being read out.

The pastor continued unabated, and I just had to stomach it all, whether I liked it or not. Once he was finished with this text I leapt to my feet, yelling “that’s quite enough from you” and stomped out. It was icy cold outside, and where I lived was right at the other end of town, but I didn’t feel the cold then, I was so livid over the whole situation.

I did not know at that stage with whom I was most angry. Was it with myself, because I ran away? Was it with the old women there, because they now knew the lifestyle I had? Or was it with Hanna, for getting me here in the first place? She had surely briefed the Pastor with every detail of my life beforehand! How on earth would he have otherwise known about me? I lay awake the entire night. I would preferably have wiped this day out from the calendar altogether, I had never been quite so embarrassed in my entire life up till then.

“Nothing mentioned about you at all”

The following day I marched up to Hanna and immediately took it out on her. She listened patiently at my ranting, even wanly smiling when I told her that I found it quite abhorrent that she’d supplied him with everything about me; that was simply none of his business whatsoever!

I stood looking at her, my face as red as a beetroot with rage. Once I had stopped ranting and raving at her she calmly informed me that what the Pastor had read out from the Bible was written two thousand years back. She told me that “I shouldn’t take it all so personally, nothing in that passage was aimed at you”.

I was rendered quite speechless at this. I arrived at the conclusion that “if that is really true that you had not informed on me how on earth could he have possibly known about my lifestyle?” Then Jesus must have really been there.

Hanna’s answer to that came straight to the point “That’s right”. She did not elaborate on this at all. “So, what do I do now?” I mused. “Surrender your whole being to Jesus Christ” came the answer “and the rest he will take care of himself”.

That is exactly what I did – in the middle of this milking parlour, I knelt down in one of the aisles, and issued Jesus with this short prayer: “Jesus, come into my life, and take me by my hand”. Once I had finished this short prayer, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of pure joy that I simply cannot even begin to describe. I was laughing and at the same time crying for joy, and indeed this joy became my companion for years after that.

Later I gathered that what I had gone through was called “conversion”. By the way, the lady I brought with me to the meeting was converted on that same evening, but because I ran away, I wasn’t to know that until the following day.

Everything new now

From that moment onwards, once I had surrendered my life to Jesus, my entire life changed. I would almost go as far as declaring that everything became as clear as crystal after that. I realised that I had made many mistakes in my life.

The change in me was so dramatic that I didn’t really grasp just what was happening. It resulted in me dropping my previous unsavoury lifestyle as a matter of course. This became quite plain to my other work colleagues that I had to put up with their rather sarcastic comments like “she doesn’t talk to us anymore, she’s become holier than thou”, and “She’s too busy with praying “Our Father from dawn to dusk”. This was not remotely true, but it was quite clear that they simply couldn’t grasp what had happened in my life.

Things weren’t that easy for me after my conversion; now I appreciate just how much Jesus protected me from the worst of their ignorant platitudes, so I never took things as personally as I could have done. On the contrary I was so filled with utter elation at what had happened to me that I just wanted to tell it out to the entire world, regardless of whether I had an audience or not. Of course, “one’s mouth speaks from the overflow of one’s heart” [Luke 6(45)]. Now at the tender age of nineteen I felt that I could convert the entire world!

Several months later I was baptized, and I was well instructed by my now former pastor, Pastor Karl-Heinz Kluge, understanding much more as my life in the Lord progressed. After a year I was in a position to lead a youth group within our church, and I attended weekly the youth Bible evenings in that church.

An added bonus to all of this was the discovery of my talents as a guitar player, and I was a fast learner. Whether I learned to read sheet music I am not sure. Our pastor gave me as a present a small folder, with all the various positions on the strings of the guitar. Within weeks I learned to accompany worship with the guitar.

The best aspect of church life was the retreats during the school holidays, and it wasn’t long before I was in a position to play a leading role. Church life really brought out the best in me, due to getting to know many Christians, as well as some non-Christians, and this was indeed one of the most fulfilling times of my life.

Experiencing North Korea second hand

In the summer of 1979, I travelled for the first time up to the Baltic Coast. My cousin Uwe had managed to rent out a bungalow for two weeks with his wife and two children, and they invited me for several days holiday up there.

Being on the Baltic Coast was the other great aspiration of my life. As a schoolgirl I cut out pictures of the Baltic Coast from every magazine I could get my hands on, and decorated the sloping wall of my bedroom with them. That was years ago! However, the longing for the unknown, exotically beautiful and up till then inaccessible Baltic coast remained.

My dream was now about to become reality, I was actually going to see the Baltic for real! The train left Dresden station heading straight for Rostock. This train would be stopping in the big towns only. The train was jammed packed solid, which left me wondering whether the entire of my part of East Germany was heading that way too. It wasn’t that expensive to get there but wasn’t that cheap either – I had a good idea of what the average family earned in the former East-Germany.

I had time to ponder as the train rolled along from Dresden until we reached the Central Station in Berlin. On arrival there I was aware of an overall commotion on the platform, such that I never experienced before. Police in uniform were running around and calling out to each other on arrival on the station even before the train had ground to a halt.

Things happened quickly after that, but in an orderly fashion too: uniformed personnel came into my coach, turfed all the passengers out and redistributed them all into the other coaches. Within a very short space of time my coach was completely empty, but with me sitting there alone!

What an earth was going on? I did not know either. I waited and waited to be moved on along with the others, even getting up to gather my luggage together, but no-one was paying the slightest bit of attention to me. Nobody said anything, nobody even glanced at me, as if I was invisible. The coach had become completely empty by now. I opened the window, stuck my head out, and watched all the commotion on the platform from there.

Things started to happen outside: two men rolled a red carpet out, a band took their positions on the platform, their uniform being that of the National People’s Army, and a small group of Asians arrived. One of the men advanced two steps forward from the four officials who were accompanying him and was presented with a bouquet of flowers by two female officials as a parting gift. They then boarded my coach. I was stupefied by now. Why on earth was I allowed to stay put while all the other passengers were made to move elsewhere on the train?

The Asians took their seats on the other side of the gangway, in silence. I observed them, they simply did not seem to register that I was there at all. The train then set off once again.

The man who accepted the bunch of flowers now was now looking in my direction. Then he spoke in his own language to the others, resulting in all of them nervously casting their gaze at me! The man who spoke was obviously in charge, and he now came over to me, raising his hand in order to reassure me. He smiled at me, bowed lightly, and then offered his hand to me introducing himself.

His name was simply impossible to pronounce; however, what he then said in soft tones in virtually perfect German was very interesting. He was very pleased once I told him that I worked in agriculture at a modern milking parlour. Apparently, I was speaking with one of the most highest ranking ministers for agriculture in North Korea!

He proceeded to tell me was quite horrifying things which I had never heard before. Daily routine in agriculture in North Korea was run with military-like precision, rank and all; but not the typical eight hour shifts we were accustomed to in communist East Germany! In North Korea they worked ten to twelve hours every single day. And with such an efficient farming paradise they simply did not know what to do with all the produce. It did not go to the workers – they went hungry, with some of them even starving to death.

I told him about my own life: that I had just accepted Jesus Christ into my life, the Lord now being my constant spiritual companion. He took my hand, stroked it, and asked me quietly “then please pray for our country” (this I did with several other friends regularly after this). Moreover he told me that on returning to his country he may well be imprisoned, if one of his officials belonging to the state police inform the regime that we were speaking to each other like this; that would be his fate for once and for all.

Absolutely appalled at all what I had heard from him I then asked him why the population in North Korea have not risen up against the government. He then described the hierarchy in North Korea being intolerant of all protest, ruthlessly stamping out all opposition; it sounded like the previous Nazi regime which I’d had drummed into me by the school teachers in East Germany.

Time flew by on that journey to Rostock. The chief official gave me as a present, several memorabilia from him and his own country, among them a picture book depicting Pyongyang and life there in all its detail, “which I could show my family and children”. I have had this book until recently, which I have often showed to my daughter; she loves the cute illustrations in it. Later I gave this to my mother as a present. On arrival in Rostock the senior ranking official took me warmly by the arm and whispered in my ear “pray for our country, won’t you”.

I gave it a lot of thought about why he pleaded with me to do so; I could only arrive at the conclusion that he and his family were secret followers of Jesus, maybe having already been converted before the communist era started in North Korea, having retained the most important principles from his faith then. I still remember to this day this encounter with this chief official, thereby gaining deep respect and solidarity with his people.

An article from the Stern magazine

Once again, I received mail from West Germany. My pen pal sent me an article this time from the Stern magazine. It depicted in black and white that the so-called ‘solidarity money’ sent from East Germany as a ‘donation from the people’ to the Russians, was used for the manufacture of weapons employed for the occupation of the Russian troops in Afghanistan.

This was shocking news for me. It became apparent that those ‘unsuspecting citizens of East Germany’ would probably be the only ones who did not actually realise this. Although we were able to receive the TV channels from West Germany where I lived; actual facts like this were systematically concealed from us. Now I had the entire picture, and I decided not to pay one single penny farthing more as donation to the solidarity fund for Russia. Whenever we received the year-end bonus from our pay packets, we were given the opportunity of to make a ‘voluntary’ contribution to as a ‘gesture of solidarity’ to those in Russia.

Today was the day the solidarity collection would be taken. I went along to the meeting with this article in my handbag, and the local party secretary gave us a speech covering all of the political issues governing this fund, but of course not where the funds would end up. So, I got up and asked him exactly where our donations would be used, which we were about to pay into this fund.

The party secretary hesitated and stalled, and once I judged that he’d beaten about the bush enough I took the offending article out of my handbag and slammed it down on the table, declaring “If he would deign to read this article, then he’d be all the wiser, and tell us the truth for once”. There ensued a deathly hush in the room; one could literally hear a pin drop.

A ‘courtesy visit’ by the Secret State Police (known as the Stasi )

The following day it came as no surprise to me that a Stasi official knocked on my door. I’m not really the nervous or shy type of person when it comes to dealing with strangers, but this Stasi officer really did instil the fear of death into me, meaning exactly was he was saying as he paced back and forth in my lounge. I felt really quite physically sick as he started to comb through my cupboards and drawers – they were full of items sent to me from West Germany, all arranged so that the smell of the soap stored there didn’t infuse itself into the chocolate.

Indeed this was rather inept timing as the cupboard was full of bars of chocolate, sent to me from West Germany in generous quantities by my uncle, my pen pals, Uwe and Otrud, as well as from Pastor Becker living in Rhine Valley. I certainly had the intention of distributing these to my other friends locally, but I just hadn’t got round to it at that point in time; no-one in East Germany paid any attention to the sell by dates that were on the wrappers.

It was common knowledge that the Stasi officials were forbidden to receive or keep any product from West Germany; this served to make me even more nervous as he rummaged through the cupboard full of these goodies. I didn’t mind him glaring at the cans of pineapple and packet soups, my mind was fixated on what this officer would discover on looking at the bottom of that cupboard – I just prayed he would turn wouldn’t open that particular drawer. His grunts of disapproval already had left me in no doubt at all that he was less than amused on encountering all these products from the West. He made it plain to me “we have our ways and means of silencing young ladies like you”.

“Oh Lord Jesus”, I uttered under my breath, “Please don’t make him open the drawer at the bottom”. No luck, he did so just at that point, and what should behold him but a radio manufactured outside the DDR, specifically designed to receive radio channels broadcast from West Germany, albeit this one being able to receive just Radio Luxembourg and its lilting pop music. Now I knew I was really for it as he really started ranting and raving at me. I was shaking like a leaf by now. For weeks, maybe even months afterwards I was unable to talk about this incident, I had become so afraid of this official by now.

Sometime later I felt able to speak with my pastor about this incident, asking him if it was natural to have been so jittery during this ordeal. “You should have told me about this straight away” he said, having had regular visits from “these brothers of mine”, and he proceeded to issue me a with a list of “do’s and don’ts” as far as one’s whole approach to life behind the Iron Curtain was concerned, most of all when and where one could discuss politics without fear of reprisals, and where it was totally ill-advised (i.e. in one’s own private dwellings, they could well be bugged).

I don’t know even to this day who passed on the offending article to the Stasi. Later on, once the wall came down, I had access to my Stasi files, and in it I discovered that I had told my neighbour that I’d wished that this criminal would “wake up as a cripple”; it was a lot longer before I was able to put this behind me.

I would have dearly loved to have encountered this Stasi officer, who had gone through my cupboards, after the wall came down. I don’t know what I would have done or said though, but in my dreams my foot landed square between his legs from behind!

This whole experience had affected me much more than I had first anticipated. My fear of being marched away by the Stasi and locked up without anyone knowing where I had ended up was such that I needed counselling in order to come to terms with this ordeal. It took a long time for me to be able to answer the door in a confident and friendly manner, without my heart beating wildly. Moreover, almost everyone I encountered in those months following this incident became prime suspects in betraying me.

In our first flat as a young couple we had the privilege of having a telephone. Having a telephone wasn’t something which one could take for granted by any stretch of the imagination. However it wasn’t all sweet and light with this flat; on its roof was the village siren, which went off once a week at the very least, giving off a deafening wail, at which one would just have to block one’s ears. It was commonly understood that the week would be divided in two – before the siren went off, and after it had gone off, Wednesday at 1pm being the pivotal time. I was never sure when the telephone rang, whether it was a friend, or whether the siren should be set off(either due to a blaze in the vicinity, some other emergency, or God forbid, the Western allies had decided to attack us). The telephone was one of these old-fashioned ones, with a dial and the receiver hung on two hooks, with a connecting lead from one telephone to the other. However it was common knowledge that the Stasi were avid eavesdroppersthere being just the right number of connected telephones at the exchange where the Stasi operated, so they could actually pick up every telephone conversation; hence one was very fortunate to have a telephone in one’s own flat, there being so few telephones manufactured in the DDR in all.

Those days when I was on the telephone it did not bother me in the slightest who was listening in. One day I was on the telephone to my uncle in the West Germany, and our conversation drifted on to the fact that we had “an audience interested in what we were discussing”. I was in top form expressing my opinion of the DDR, all of them being “utter cripples” as I’d wished on the person who betrayed me. That would be the final telephone call I would make! – the next day several Stasi officials arrived promptly at my front door, ripped the telephone apparatus from the wall, and confiscated it for good.

Looking back on this entire time I realise now just how much Jesus had protected me from the worst of the ire of the Stasi officials. I can appreciate that much more now over the years.