Refugee in search of a homeland

In October he invited me to come to his home again for a weekend, as a shoot had been arranged by his father. For me it was a feast of nostalgia. Memories flooded back, I thought of Günter, how he loved the hunt, and our lost home. In the evening we showed our photos from our ski trip to Hugo's father and told him about the wonderful time we had together in the snow. He seemed pleased that we had enjoyed it so much.

After we both had finished our accountancy course and had sat for the exams, Hugo went back home to pursue his career, and we lost touch with one another.

In November I was able to go for a quick visit to Emersleben, again officially with an interzonal pass, to celebrate my parents' silver wedding anniversary on 26 November. Many guests from family and friends came for this celebration.

Looking towards my future in the wool trade in Bremen, I thought it would be important to have a drivers licence. I took lessons with a driving school, as no private tutors were allowed to teach driving in Germany. The minimum lessons were six, and as my finances were still very tight, I had to be successful at the final driving test. I took my first lesson on 15 December and the last on 5 January 1952 and luckily passed the test on 7 January.

Christmas 1951 was to be the last time I spent in Emersleben, again with an interzonal pass, which was increasingly more difficult to obtain. The relationship between east and west Germany had turned from bad to worse. Under Russian pressure the border between the East and West zone was permanently closed in the spring of 1952. Churchill had referred to this event as 'an Iron Curtain had descended between East and West'. Barbed wire fences had been erected with watch towers every so often, and a strip of about 20 meters width had been ploughed right next to the fence so that the guards, who were all equipped with sniffer dogs, would be able to immediately detect any illegal attempts at border crossings. They also received orders to shoot to kill. The only place where people could still cross from East to West was in Berlin.

I didn't know it then, but Christmas 1951 was also the last time I was to see Oma. She had written to me on 11/9/51 about a letter she had received from her sister, Tante Emma, who had suggested that I should come to Boston as part of my training, and then live at her place. Tante Emma also wrote about a certain Jean Beaurang who had married a grand daughter of their cousin. He worked for the Kreglinger firm in Sydney, Australia, and Tante Emma thought it would be good for me to spend a few years there in the wool trade.

Oma's last letter to me is dated 22.1.52. She seemed happy that my future looked somewhat clearer, and that I would be going to Onkel Rudolf in Dahlhausen. She expressed grave concern about rumours she had heard, that conscription had been introduced in West Germany. "Couldn't you two (Bernd and I) get out of it somehow? It is senseless to

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