- Title: No regrets: East Germans recall attempts to flee Communist state
- Date: 31st October 2019
- Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (OCTOBER 8, 2019) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (German) HUBERT HOHLBEIN, WHO FLED EAST BERLIN BY SWIMMING AND THEN HELPED BUILD "TUNNEL 57" TO HELP OTHER PEOPLE FLEE, SAYING: "It was a tremendous feeling taking part in possibly helping your relatives and friends come over but at the same time it was a strain because I had only just survived the border crossing mys
- Embargoed: 14th November 2019 13:07
- Keywords: Berlin Wall East Germany anniversary German Democratic Republic fall of the Berlin Wall
- Location: SCHONDORF AM AMMERSEE & BERLIN & GLIENICKE/NORDBAHN & MUEHLENBECKER LAND, GERMANY
- City: SCHONDORF AM AMMERSEE & BERLIN & GLIENICKE/NORDBAHN & MUEHLENBECKER LAND, GERMANY
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Human Interest / Brights / Odd News,Society/Social Issues
- Reuters ID: LVA008B3FFUPZ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: More than four decades after Carmen Rohrbach tried to swim her way out of then-Communist East Germany, she has no regrets, despite getting caught and being sent to prison.
Rohrbach, now 71, had always wanted to be an explorer. As a child, she learned to ride horses in the hope of one day touring Mongolia. Her dreams were crushed when she completed her biology degree in eastern Germany.
She applied for research assignments in Cuba, Mongolia and Siberia, but was rejected.
Escape seemed the best way to pursue her chosen path so she hatched a plan to paddle to Denmark.
She and a friend set off from a campsite by the coast in northeastern Germany one night in 1974, but they ended up sinking their rubber dinghy to avoid detection by searchlights. They swam for a night and day.
"I still can't imagine being able to swim for that long," she told Reuters in an interview ahead of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989 that brought about German reunification.
During their second night at sea, the pair found a buoy and thought it would save them, but they were picked up by an East German warship in international waters.
Rohrbach was sentenced to 32 months' imprisonment for trying to flee. She was ultimately deported to the West sooner than that, without getting the chance to say goodbye to her family.
Since her release in 1976, Rohrbach has travelled widely doing research and writing books. She is glad she grew up in the Communist German Democratic Republic (GDR) before fleeing in her early 20s, as she better appreciates democracy and freedom.
Rohrbach was not the only person who tried to swim from the East. Another was Hubert Hohlbein, whose school teachers sometimes called him a "capitalist's son" as his parents were business people.
With the wind whipping up the water one November day in 1963, Hohlbein swam with a snorkel for around 1.5 km from Potsdam in the East to Wannsee in West Berlin. It was a risky move: he knew others had been shot trying to flee in the area.
But he made it to the West of the divided city, where he helped build a tunnel that enabled almost 60 others, including his mother, to escape.
Others were not so lucky. Thomas Drescher grew up in the East and knew he did not want to spend the rest of his life behind the Iron Curtain. Along with a friend, he cycled up to the Wall with a ladder and climbed.
Drescher, then 21, knew his game was up when a bright light shone on him. A border guard pointed a machine gun.
He spent nine months in jail and was released 16 days before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He does not regret his decision. Now the youth worker talks to school and church groups about his experience.
(Production: Ralph Brock, Oliver Barth, Bettina Borgfeld, Tanja Daube, Barbara Woolsey, Michelle Martin) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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