RE: Contest - Story9: "My Student Life" / "Mein Leben als Schüler / Student"
It was really that bad... Disappeared, no. But two facts: we were 19 pupils in that particular class. When I attended a single class reunion in 2010 - at the age of 45 - only 13 of them were still alive. Besides two fatal cancers, there were three suicides. We definitely have a chip on our shoulder since then.... And almost worse: we still haven't talked to each other. Well, really talked. About that time, about our backgrounds. There was only blah-blah...
Es war wirklich so schlimm... Verschwunden, nein. Aber zwei Fakten: wir waren in dieser speziellen Klasse 19 Schüler. Als ich 2010 bei einem einzigen Klassentreffen dabei war - mit 45 Jahren - lebten nur noch 13 davon. Neben zwei tödlichen Krebserkrankungen gab es drei Selbstmorde. Wir haben definitiv einen Knacks weg seit damals... Und fast noch ärger: wir haben immer noch nicht miteinander geredet. Also wirklich geredet. Über damals, über unsere Hintergründe. Es gab nur Blabla...
That’s so sad, why do you think so many have committed suicide?
I believe that if you grow up under a cheese bell full of mistrust and are indoctrinated to the hilt - and then experience how this whole construct collapses.... You have nothing left at the end that you can call your basis or roots.
At the time, I had no idea that GDR citizens could not travel as easily as I could. That they couldn't buy bananas or oranges at any time - like I could. Or that there was forced participation in elections, prisons for children or involuntary adoptions...
We are all not old enough to have become "perpetrators" ourselves to a considerable extent. But we were downright criminally clueless.
Ah, I understand. You’ve seen a view of the world which is so different to almost everybody else. In one sense, I’m surprised that it didn’t bring you closer together and I hesitate to use the word “ashamed” as the reason it’s not spoken about.
Do you wonder what life would have been for you had the wall not come down?
No.
I once wrote elsewhere that I was forced into army service and screwed up one thing after another until they threw me out. It wasn't possible to resign so easily.
After that I was "burnt" for the GDR - I wouldn't have found work because they didn't hire anyone who had been dishonourably discharged. After the " turnaround" I was just as unacceptable. Precisely BECAUSE I had the army background.
I wouldn't have got along in one system and I had just as much trouble in the other one.
TEAM MILLIONAIRE.
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