961. 00 east german troops moved into position on the boundaries between inside each Occupied Zone of germany and the sect is held by the u. S. S. R. As western allies britain france and the us the Cold War Division now stretched across the whole country not just through berlin more and more barriers was set up along 1400 kilometers of east germanys front. He is making them into a deadly no mans land even horse ways like the elbow were closely watched although its germanys Border Guards were initially prohibited from shooting at women and children the ministry of a state security better known as the stasi places said they should not hesitate to use firearms even if women and children and these traitors often exploded to present. By 989. 00 more than 13 miners would be killed on the front east and west germany. Prices have my name is joe said i live it up on the shasta 42 in quotes back my parents are christian under many habits i have 2 sisters and one is just a live baby inventions shes full. Time i play a lot behind the house with my friend up dollar hes 2 years older than me. Today he asked me if i wanted to go down to the river lets pray for the new ive never been there without my parents. But i have to learn knows how to get to the water. We want to look at the fish. Device or shine put the. We got up on the hill have to kind how it affected in the water. Use up as a book and he says to vinci lived in berlin scrotes go district. 6 when he and his friend went to the banks of the british rail in west berlin in june 1974 men with of the up and. Of us later on my mother discovered that my brother wasnt in the yard anymore and asked our neighbor to come over and look after us. Then she went to see where he had gone. She found out that he had left our building that with another boy and then your house. With us. Focus my talent cast advises all guest workers just have his father dominico had come to berlin in 1954 before the wall was built his wife a bride a decade later i got married and like many other foreign immigrants in berlin at the time moved into a low point apartment in an old a tenement building the 1st sign just 2nd was in 1968 when we got bombed to try strides with me my brother was very proud of me as we played a lot together. And he was really gentle and careful with my little sister who was just a baby then he always liked to feed her her bottle. Or he was good natured and open he didnt get wound up like i did even at the age of 4 he was the quiet one. We go. Back in the 1970 s. There were lots of different nationalities living in courts but neighborhoods children often played together when their pay. Ants work work. The over bound bridge loop the districts quote spoken friedrichs time at least until the wall was built in 1960. Then the span was cordoned off. From then on the east German Border Police guarded the preach and the river itself which was already treat this point the west bank of the river was an ideal place for children to play even after 961 many people also came down to fish or stroll to it was the same on june 15th 1974 and. I just wish that my mom instinctively ran towards the water. She said that when she got there she could already see all those people and hear them shouting that a child had fallen into the water. Its possible find earth. When you said this with his friends on the banks of the fact he wanted to fish Something Else of. The further and further. Away he slipped. And. A great lady my mother was acquainted with said she believed it was her boy who was floating in the water. Thats your son g. s f. A she said. Hes there in the water with the. East german 35th order regiment early and romans burke was stationed at the open bow bridge and cordoned off the river using boats mauled off the bridge. The Border Guards closely monitor the fog bank if anyone stepped over the front into the river there were authorized to up. On that saturday a border guard on the bridge. Into the water and told the boat company commander. The Border Patrols are forced into the port and the boat Company Leader said he had been alerted by a shout from the bank that a child had fallen in the water he said it was a provocation and informed his superior about the accident but he refused to launch an immediate rescue. Divers from the border regiment didnt just suppose body from the sri until about 11 am west German Police and firefighters on the scene were afraid that would be shot if they tried to save him. But. The authorities in west berlin got in touch with my mother. The police told her that as soon as the body drifted into the eastern sector the west simply couldnt do anything thats. Not. My hair really stands on end when i read one part of the case file it says there werent any air bubbles or just a few. Things it doesnt matter that it was my brother who was in there its the principle of the matter. I dont know its hard hard to know that there were people there who just stood by and looked on. Its a shot from. His body was taken to east berlin his parents were beside themselves with grief and his father collapsed as mother crystal was only allowed into east berlin 2 days later to identify her son. Police German Authorities her pain at losing a child wasnt an issue at all. She said that she would never be able to forget which she saw he was there just as he was when they pulled him out of the water she said he was on a table then they just hauled back the sheet as they do and 1st she just began to cry of course it was her son there but she still had to go through all the formalities of identifying him and proving that it really was her son. The final report of the ministry of state security she said after the police had completed the criminal investigation it was determined this was an accidental drowning caused by the child itself. Act in. The east German Authorities followed similar protocols in other cases in addition to just episode work of 4 more children between 5 and 8 years old died in the shrubbery. And recenter secret crowbarred. Gallacher trying cheat and change and met. A firefighter from west berlin class after ham was involved in 2 instance on the banks of the sri including one in which one of the turkish boys drowned he remembers that before the war was built the east german Border Guards in the west Berlin Fire Department used to Work Together if someone fell into the river. But after 961. 00. It was a different story when the. If the east german Border Patrol boats were there we would try to talk to them like we never got an answer one of the ones. With the i would just look and then turn away and refused to have any contact with us on the then it would sometimes take an hour i say sometimes longer before the scuba divers came and took over the recovery of the 4 and of course you can imagine all the people watching what we were doing from a bomb on usually we had divers ready to go all they had to do was get in the water. Or and. And of course the families really piled on the pressure shouting you cowards and the like. These i wish to argue that they didnt really understand what they were saying but we could sense the aggression by the 20 cent. A turkish boy chechen met drowned in the shrubbery on may 11th 975 he was recovered just an hour later barely 5 meters from the west berlin back following day so heated protests at the same. Meant an airport and those of the Turkish Community have held her with monday demonstration in memory of the 5 year old turkish boy who drowned in this way around 2000 people took part in the march 5000 pounds on the toilet which went to the core of an over in the crowd burg close to the obama bridge. After the accident in east berlin Border Guards have prevented the west berlin fire brigade from launching a rescue effort from the western side. Only after a total of 5 children had died with fences and warning signs finally put up the authorities in western east berlin wrangled to 2 he is over in the agency rescue procedures they finally agreed the 1st responders including the west Berlin Police and Fire Department and people at the scene to try to launch a rescue after that. No more children died on the border. Nor doubt how between his acca and burke was worth the form the border between west and east germany. In all those 9623 boys set out to cross his 100 kilometer long section of the front and escape to west germany by swimming across the. One of the lost his life in the attempt. Of. Your hand and hammon wanted to flee with a friend and kept. My name is get in camp im 15 years old and i live. In ill be in 10th grade in september what i really want to do is go live with my father hines there hamburg i visited him there once. After 3 years in a siberian labor camp father had moved to hamburg in 1950 seats of the family had split up and get remained with his grandparents father wanted him to finish school and sharing. He still said he some packages with jeans and a white belt with a buckle which was the style back then then get ahead of another people at school who wanted to flee to the west. Hemant was in the next grade up at the same school as truman camp 2 of p. C. Blades had already fled west which meant she had few prospects at all against germany. I thought of as a really go flush of my stuff my father was a selfemployed butcher and my grandfather already had a butcher shop so we were already viewed as capitalists. Basically children from the social groups were generally suspected of being nonsocialist. In the 7th grade i applied to attend an advanced high school the next year but my teacher told me that there was no way i would get anyone to sponsor me to go there it just wasnt done. Because if you already had 2 siblings in the west and all of my relatives were in the west as well as the state right away said we dont need people like that theyre not politically reliable its. Followed by a. Vote and so right from the get go i had no chance of having a career there. From follow her and her focus in on it for you and mom were. My parents already realised i had no intention of staying in east germany and growing up in that system. Does and says. He wasnt alone in hating the rituals of the socialist state. He quickly became friends with you had history who was also. Them kept getting into trouble with the system and i like going out together and sharing. What i do know we go and dance up stands the parents dance lessons and a whole right here around the corner like you and i. Instead of the bernie. Commitment to socialism they were crazy about rocknroll and dreamed up on life in the west will have a strict as parents were well known dance teaches you just need to share in with them the family lived in a small village nearby until the summer of 961. 00. This is where your highness rich dad and his 2 siblings grew up they used to wander all over the place sometimes going down to the elba which was only 3 kilometers away. The river still marks the border then but it wasnt yet heavily guarded in 1961 only a few wooden watchtowers overlook the demarcation line armed patrols of east german Border Guards were few and far between. Those 2 and 5 years as a very big walmart or i dont cross farm called the Border Police really want all that much of an issue but i never really said you cant go in here or you cant do this in order to begin with it just wasnt that strict spring. After he moved to share in your highness trip to look for like minded friends. And this was the resin. If i was around 15 then cover groups of kids who werent really politically committed any more poorly jewish or the world really part of the political system and you had to find them as teams or. But it didnt take long to see who they were would. The boys make their plans to cross over to the west in the summer of 9621 day they were behaving and hatched a plan to swim across the new year harnessed reached its old village 3 days before their attempt could in camp join them in you have been booked from school. By the time joined us we werent about to call the whole thing off. I am reading someone who knew about the plan would have been riskier than taking him with a rifle. On august the 4th 962 they took the train from sheer into no house about 5 kilometers from the elba. They waited in a restaurant until the light began to fade the only thing could they move into the restricted border area and. They had to stay away from drugs and ponds. S. Y. R. Pretty rough it was probably night really dark we just kept heading in the direction of the bar with no compass written off when we heard boots clattering on the street would move quickly into the next field and duck down until they were gone to doping obviously for buyers and then we kept going the 4 as. They reached the dikes on the elba just before dawn. It was already a night. Thats really all we climbed up on to the dike that you have could come wolf one of the suddenly get called out the guards are coming. Thought involves a large door for security we turn. Around and saw them about 50 or 100 meters away from all we ran down right away and got in the water i. Guess about how deep your answer when against all the gods it was every man for himself. I just started running. He went to group anymore everyone had to look after themselves but his resource. Yohannes ran to the end of the breakwater and jumped into the river. The good says and turn off then the guards ran along the breakwaters and could already get a bead on us from the side. They opened fire and i saw a shot hit the water next to me about a metre away and. No one is in. Cant camp was quick and made it to the water 1st. He wanted to get away from the bank in the governments so he. Passed. And he did something hot probably a stun. Gun in camp was bleeping and im going to praise. The good can come from the. Get and i were maybe 5 or 6 metres away from each other from 6 medo else and im there. Also inviting when i had to get out of the water i heard him say i cant make it in the familys mia. I wanted to swim over to him but the border guard said once they do that and hes dead told. Apparently injured and without help get can and cant sank under the water. Meanwhile the 2nd border guard following your highness rishta 5 detained with an automatic rifle. I dived as long as possible come up get a breath and then go down immediately and my head came up again they fired again and again shot after shot it went to different and then do you know and then back down again and a bit further away you know. I would i kept on swimming until my stomach hits than i thought now you can stand up and youre in the west so to speak. British it was alleged that he had made it. Get can in tampa never got back to dry land the east german Border Guards daily report noted he was observed going on. So sunday at least some good news for may give even if he hadnt been such a good swimmer i could have gotten him on to shore. I could swim well and there wouldnt have been a problem to pull him along with me. Who gets that seat in that he wasnt a big guy he thought as all of you none of them was we were kids and he was light of life he had a kind i wouldnt have had any trouble taking him with me if we hadnt been discovered. In the name. Get can in camps train. Of a new life in the west ended when he was almost there his death certificate noted. Can and camp was recovered from the fire 6 55 pm or almost the 10th 962. Famine broke it was arrested and interrogated by the state Security Service in the jail in cherry in. The summer of. Love when i was 16 i looked like a 14 year old son and of course i blame thomas rishta it organized it all i settled and planned it and i just played the little dummy for a while and it worked to. Start off with flopped. A month later herman burkett was charged with a misdemeanor and convicted under juvenile law he was given a probationary sentence. Comp never came up at all even during interrogations in the trial it was an embarrassment for the system they just kept silent about it all this. Time and got off easy. So would be a c. P. A. Had to promise to improve his attitude and began an apprenticeship as a bricklayer after military service in the east german peoples army the m. B. A. He was rehabilitated and later even allowed to take over his parents butcher shop only you had his reach to found things in the west more difficult than he expected and started an odyssey through reception camps and hostels with the children of east german Refugee Families were often left to their own devices. That was quite tough but after trying to make contact with relatives in the west and all that. Sometimes it was really frustrating. You had we had fairly close ties in our family and then it was just gone all at once like run a line on you were just on your own and especially holidays like christmas was going away its really difficult. Nevertheless johannes did start a new life in the west finishing secondary school and going on to Study University after an amnesty from instrument if he could even visit his family. That was almost as exciting as running away in the 1st place because i was really scared when i got to the border. Of the way the Border Guards came and said i thought. We could have arrested meghann even then after 10 years or colorado. Good kind of case was reopened in 1995 but the investigation against the 2 Border Guards was then closed because good hadnt been hit by a bullet. I was a bit different than joran so in the end the actual guilty people were the officers or those who that say gave the orders and made them do it all of. These years comes as this to the whole system is simply unforgivable and thats just how it was. They always say that as a christian you should love your enemy. But i just cant bring myself to do it. In 962 what the east german regime called the anti fascist defense wall was still largely im forced hired by 979 it was almost impregnable 30000 Border Guards patrolled the fronting a day and night with orders to shoot to kill would be escapees who could not be stopped in the way day after day they were charged with consenting people from leaving the country at any price and they followed those orders to the letter to foil an escape attempt by 2 teenagers from hell a noise that. The flies shower and his friend hike