At first, we didn’t know anything about the fall of the wall at all. We had been in Cuba since 1984 with an FDJ (official East German organisation) brigade to work on a cement plant with 16 adults and about four to five children at any given point. We actually celebrated the 40th anniversary of East Germany with a big party, while something was already brewing at home. We did have some contact with family and friends back home, but they did not dare tell us at the time what was happening there. We got our post once a week and one letter gave some indications that “quite a lot was going on”. But that was it, as they did not know how it would develop. We did not believe the wall would fall, that was utopian.
We then had to disband the brigade in Cienfuegos and our family was the last to fly back home. In April 1990, we landed at Schönefeld, and for the first time no one was there to pick us up. Usually someone from the FDJ’s central council would come to collect our international passports. We needed those to be able to make a stopover in the Canadian town of Gander. They had western shops in the transit area, by the way, that we always went into to look at the magazines. The men especially liked the adult magazines as this kind of thing simply didn’t exist in East Germany.
So there we were at Schönefeld and for the first time we were allowed to keep our passports and go home alone. I still have my passport today. But I never got my Begrüßungsgeld (welcome money). We came back too late for that.
»So there we were at Schönefeld and for the first time we were allowed to keep our passports and go home alone.«