My grandmother told me that when my mother turned 8, balloons were released at her birthday party. Attached to the balloon's string was a postcard with my mother's home address and a request for a reply to the person who found it. 160 km as the crow flies later, the balloon landed in Perlenberg in what was then East Germany. A little girl named Evita found the balloon and wrote a letter back to my mother. In the letter, she briefly introduced herself, said she was 10 years old and had found the balloon. My grandmother then decided to send Evita a package containing groceries such as oatmeal, chocolate, and coffee—everything that was allowed to be sent at that time. My grandmother put a letter inside the package. This package came back some time later—already opened, rummaged through, and poorly resealed. My grandmother then explained to me that every package sent to East Germany was inspected by customs, and every letter was read. It's hard to imagine something like that these days, with our data protection guidelines... or is it? After some time, my grandma figured out exactly what was allowed to be sent, what contents were permitted in a letter, and which foods Evita would be most happy with. At some point, my grandma even dared to send money – previously, this had been strictly forbidden, as Western currency could be used to pay on the black market. My grandma would hide 20 marks in the silver wrapping of the chocolate and then repackage it so that customs officials wouldn't discover the money. Evita thanked her for each package in a letter, especially for the chocolate. This "purpose exchange," as my grandma called it, continued for almost 15 years, with three packages per year for her birthday, Easter, and Christmas. Over time, she continued to receive snippets about Evita's life: her first boyfriend, then her wedding, and what she later did for a living – but they were never long letters with much content, as a proper exchange between West and East wasn't really possible or permitted. When I asked my grandmother why she sent these packages to a stranger for such a long time, she simply replied: "We belonged together. We are one people, we were only separated by a wall, and we wanted to help." In 1989, when the wall was opened, contact was lost: no letter, no phone call. Nothing.
