We´re only humans ...

Rainer Hildebrandt. Reinhard Furrer. Josef Capek. Three names that just appear on the screen. Before Saturday, that´s likely all they would have ever been to me. But, because I am here in Berlin, these are names of people who I now know a little better -- even if I didn´t meet them in person on Saturday.

Rainer Hildebrandt, before his death two years ago, ran the Haus Am Checkpoint Charlie Museum. It still stands and still operates quite well, very close to the Checkpoint Charlie station that doesn´t have to guard against people trying to climb over, under and through a barrier that once stood between West and East Berlin, also known as the Berlin Wall. The museum Hildebrandt ran provides some of the most fascinating information about the Berlin Wall, tales of those who tried to get to the other side, those who failed, those who participated in keeping people from crossing and even those who did and went on to do other great things in life.
The museum, which cost 9.50 Euro (I got a Welcome Card for Berlin for 22 Euro which gives me free public transportation for 3 days and a discount book for various sites and events, of which a 25 percent discount to this great museum), provided such stories as those who hid in cable drums, stole another person´s papers so his girlfriend could be with him, mothers who would hide their children in a small suitcase to get to the other side, people who would lay down in uniquely crafted spaces in cars, one person hiding in a plastic cow that was going for an exhibition to those who just tried to take their car and drive as fast as they could to break through. All of them strange, but all of them seeking only one thing: freedom to go where they wanted. Some died trying, some were seriously injured and some got away without a scratch. But all of them just didn´t want to have someone tell them where they could and could not go.

Alexandra Hildebrandt´s introduction for Rainer´s book "Tragic Prelude to the Division of Germany and the Wall" quoted Rainer answering the question of why he established the museum:

"The contemporaries deserve a long look. I lost my best friends, Albrecht Haushofer and Horst Heilmann, during the reign of the Nazis and was imprisoned myself for 17 months. I have learned to fight against injustice. My great joy about Hitler´s end was soon followed by great worry about the fate of occupied and divided Germany. I founded the Task Force against Inhumanity in 1948 and this museum after construction of the Wall. It all started in a 2 1/2 bedroom apartment and now the exhibition space is 2,000 m²."

The next person I learned about was Reinhard Furrer. I know more than just his name now. He is linked to the Berlin Wall as one of the Tunnel 57 group. He was one of many Germans, including many students at the time, who began working on digging out a tunnel from an old, unused bakery in BernauerStrabe. The group took turns digging and, 10 months after starting this project, on Oct. 2, 1964, 28 people escaped to freedom by reaching the other side. The next night, Oct. 3, 29 more people successfully made it. The entrance was in a toilet cubicle in a backyard. Once guards found out about the tunnel, it was immediately put to a stop as a means of escape. The Checkpoint Charlie museum dedicates an entire room to the Tunnel 57 folks. Some are still alive, some have died.

Although I never saw if Reinhard Furrer is dead or alive, I do know that he went from one incredible feat like being in the Tunnel 57 group to being a member of another exclusive group --- he was an astronaut on the first German Spacelab Mission from Oct. 30-Nov. 6, 1985.
There is an entire room dedicated just for Furrer, right after the Tunnel 57 room at the Checkpoint Charlie museum, detailing everything from pictures with the crew, his space outfit, a running interview on a TV screen, newspaper clippings and a few interesting quotes.

On his being a part of Tunnel 57: "... doing something to fight the injustice of the Wall was a matter of character. People did not want to sit by while that kind of injustice went on. We wanted people to realize that in doing what we did we were embodying the conscience of West Germans. We were defending moral values. It was very much an act of humanity. I would do the same again today. I expect that from every German."

Said later, reflecting on his space mission: "I would have liked to be asked, when I arrived back, what it had felt like to be out there, how I had felt in the midst of all that glittery blackness orbiting the Earth like a star."

Another person whose contributions were many, and presented a vision of what it was like to be opposite the Nazis during Hitler´s reign of terror but from a much-too-close view was Jozef Cepak. Born in Hronov, Czechoslovakia in 1887, he was an author, an artist (painter and drawings) and poet. Unfortunately, he was also arrested by the Germans as a "scourge" in September, 1942, and was deported to the Dachen concentration camp before being transferred to Buchenwald, another concentration camp. In 1942 he was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He died from typhus sometime between April 4 and 25 , 1945 shortly after he was moved to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

I learned about Cepak, whose brother Karl was a famous Czech playwright and writer, because on Saturday there was a display in one part of the Sachsenhausen Museum, which provides visitors with a free view of concentration camps, a national memorial, places where prisoners were kept, the ungodly surroundings, the inhumane conditions and more. I didn´t get to see the entire museum, spread out over a large plot of land in Oranigeburg, but I saw enough to know that any reporter doing a project on Hitler, Nazis or anything else related to this era needs to come here and take it all in. It is a depressing tale for sure, but actually, it is a necessary evil that all Germans need to remember. As painful as it is for those who are Jewish to have to see this display, I feel that as a human being it is something everyone needs to see. It is such an important part of history that needs to be preserved so that generation after generation learns from it --- and that history NEVER repeats itself this way.

Cepak´s story, among the several artistic pieces, included drawings of a pair of "dictator boots" -- his ideal portrait of Hitler and Nazi Germany -- in various scenes of the unyielding power he and his followers had against people who tried to rise up and speak out against him. Cepak also wrote poetry and drawings that he hoped one day would find their way out into the mainstream so people would know what was really going on in the minds of the prisoners.

One of his poems, written shortly before he was moved to Bergen-Belsen, goes like this:

Times of cruelty, times of sadness
No way out -- a harsh fate
Dark, ultimate days
Hope is not very great

A return to life, or in death´s maw
Where will the journey end?
Is happiness to receive you, or the pit?
Thousands go -- you are not alone.

The great day of departure is today
So long have you stood at the gate
Onto the harvest of life or of death?

Homeward! Heralded by Heaven´s choir.

--- by Jozef Cepak


As I said at the start of this post. People with a name. You don´t know much about a person when you only see their name. It´s about finding out more about that person that makes their name mean so much more. After I spent my Saturday in Berlin, I know their names won´t soon be forgotten by this writer.

RTB