Haywire Issue 4 Fall 2014

Shards of Memory
Interview With a Former GDR
by Naomi Plitzko Scherer, 10d
My laptop speakers crackle and pop, Helmut’s Saxon
accent, a familiar tone from my childhood, distorted
further by Skype’s unsatisfactory quality. Even before
I begin, I experience a sense of failure, by not
giving his life story the clarity it deserves. While exchanging
the necessary pleasantries, I mentally prepare
myself, attempting to overcome my set predictions
of what his opinion on the GDR will be. At the
same time, I am already steeling myself to rediscover
people I have known my entire life.
As if he can sense my worry from the other
side of the city, Helmut comments several times on
the tinny quality of the call, perhaps worried his existence
will be misunderstood. Soon, and without much
prompting, he launches into the tale of his youth in
the GDR, attending an elementary school in Dresden
for eight years before foregoing the diploma in favor
of a “Berufsschule” (vocational school) in Leipzig
but later rectifying this decision in Leverkusen, West
Germany. He strove to escape his authoritarian father,
knowing supplying his own livelihood would buy his
freedom. While explaining his childhood to a computer
screen, Helmut Franz frequently comments on
the lack of political fanaticism, like he can read my
preconceptions from my silence, frantically trying to
escape the stereotype. He mentions how his mother’s
unwillingness to let him join the children’s organization
the “Pioniere” was accepted without discussion.
Although, as he hurries to add, this could have been
quite different elsewhere. “The school was called the
Berufsschule Freie Jugend (the Vocational School
Free Youth) and was located in Stalin Street,” Helmut
explains. “In spite of this beautiful title and the street,
our vocational school education was very qualitative,
systematic, and objective, a very good education.”
But even after he seems to have convinced himself of
the livability of the GDR, Helmut imparts his desperate
dream of fleeing to West Germany.
In 1967, at age 18, he left through Leipzig
while it was still easy to leave. In fact, he escaped
in May, a mere two months before the Wall became
impassable, cutting short his vacation at the Baltic
Coast like he could sense the electricity in the air
before the coming storm. Helmut and his friend at
the Berufsschule had long admired the West-German
cars, all chrome and dual paint finishes and white
stripes and luxury, so different from the rickety “Trabis”
East Germans had to wait 15 years to acquire.
HAYWIRE Issue 4 Fall 2014
Art by Maria
Schubert, 12a
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