My steps carry me through a green glow. A landscape of forests and hills stretches out beside me. A breeze brushes the leaves of the trees and spreads the scent of the rapeseed covering the fields. I stop in the harmony that surrounds me, and time stops with me. The path I'm on captures that era, surrounded by barbed wire fences, watchtowers, observation bunkers, and lighting systems. Here, part of the division of Germany at that time becomes apparent. For here, between Teistungen and Duderstadt, lies one of the former inner-German border crossings from East to West Germany. My grandmother, Resi Margarete Wenzl, was born on March 12, 1940, five years before the end of the Second World War, in Breitenworbis. The village in the Eichsfeld region is about 16 kilometers from the border. In the summer of '45, her father, my great-grandfather Seppel, returned from Russian captivity. Yes, yes, yes. They ran away. They were incredibly lucky they weren't captured again. Otherwise, they wouldn't have made it home. Then he got involved in politics here in town and persevered. My great-grandfather was first the cultural director, then the mayor. He advocated for the residents and the displaced women, organized food distributions, and traveled to district council meetings on behalf of the Eichsfeld region. In 1954, my grandmother finished school at the age of just 14. One of the GDR's guiding principles was "Respect work." She was never able to fulfill her dream job as a nurse in Gotha: There were no accommodations, no youth hostels. People all had to do their own work; the houses were dilapidated. There was nothing. So I became a saleswoman. Everyday life, as she describes it, is just normal. Why get upset about it? We were still young. Then you didn't have all that... sure, you complain sometimes, but apart from that. We lived, we had food and drink, nobody did anything to us. The solidarity, that was fine. The longing that recurs in my grandmother's life is neither a desire for more freedom, for more material possessions, for a different regime or a different life, but lies outside the GDR borders in Frontenhausen, a village in Bavaria, West Germany. Her childhood and youthful memories before the division carry the warmth in her stories of her dear grandmother, her grandfather who was like her father, cousins, and her grandparents' large bakery. If my father hadn't been mayor, perhaps I would be in Bavaria today too. I would have loved to stay there back then, but for my father's sake, I didn't, because he would have gone back, and otherwise they might have locked him up if I hadn't come back. Yes, quite a few stayed there, or they crossed the border illegally, without even having permission. How many do you think escaped via Teistungen? It was the border, after all. They left in the evening, through the forest. They always found some way to get there. And then no one asks anymore. Well, once upon a time. When their father fell ill, they applied for a trip to Bavaria. I found a visa in their GDR ID card, issued for November 12, 1989, three days after the fall of the Berlin Wall. But great-grandfather Seppel was already too ill to make the trip together. He died shortly afterward on December 15, 1989, and was never able to see his family again. My grandma Resi stayed with her family in Breitenworbis. What I write is not my experiences, not my feelings, not my experiences. I didn't invent them; I'm just borrowing them and giving them back to society. Because stories are what we can share. They can be a gateway for exchange and reflection, because as soon as we share something publicly, something happens. The time, life, feelings, and everyday life of the German Democratic Republic find their way back into the present through the stories of our grandparents, parents, relatives, and acquaintances. When we talk about the GDR and the prevailing socialism of the time, Grandma says: "Sometimes it was better than today. Today, everyone is their own best friend. I think about that often."
