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Nobody likes to leave
their own homeland...
4
00:03:22,520 --> 00:03:25,520
... the place where they opened
their eyes upon this world.
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00:03:25,680 --> 00:03:30,760
Homeland also includes the circle
you move in, the people there.
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00:03:31,240 --> 00:03:34,720
Homeland is not only
a geographic space.
7
00:03:35,480 --> 00:03:37,760
Homeland... very difficult to define.
8
00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:42,360
Something that touches your heart,
that comes from your soul
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00:03:42,680 --> 00:03:47,520
but if you must put it into words:
point 1, point 2, point 3...
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00:03:47,720 --> 00:03:49,480
It doesn't work!
11
00:03:50,480 --> 00:03:57,120
Things that have to do with a sense of security
within our immediate family !
12
00:03:57,440 --> 00:03:59,200
that is homeland for me.
13
00:03:59,400 --> 00:04:03,000
It is a safe childhood.
It's love!
14
00:04:03,480 --> 00:04:08,480
Freedom is to be able to decide
where you can settle down
15
00:04:08,720 --> 00:04:11,400
and where you want to try your luck.
16
00:04:11,720 --> 00:04:14,320
In Romania they told you:
this is happiness.
17
00:04:15,160 --> 00:04:17,400
The definition of homeland?
18
00:04:17,600 --> 00:04:19,760
Well, I think
the definition of homeland
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00:04:19,960 --> 00:04:26,160
is where you spent your youth,
where you grew up, where you
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00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:35,320
This strikes a chord!
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00:04:36,960 --> 00:04:42,080
I have often thought of my father,
who died back there in 1978,
22
00:04:42,320 --> 00:04:47,160
and who always said
We can't just leave everything!
23
00:04:47,760 --> 00:04:53,080
This is what our ancestors have built
over centuries, we can't get up and leave!
24
00:04:53,400 --> 00:04:59,600
But that was the course of history
and no one could avoid it!
25
00:05:11,160 --> 00:05:13,040
... Germans from Romania...
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00:05:16,280 --> 00:05:17,960
... panic ensued...
27
00:05:18,760 --> 00:05:21,520
No one wanted to be left behind...
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00:05:21,960 --> 00:05:24,880
like an epidemic of plague
befalling the Germans...
29
00:05:27,800 --> 00:05:30,480
It was a huge humanitarian action,
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00:05:30,720 --> 00:05:35,440
it was the liberation
of ethnic Germans from Romania,
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00:05:36,080 --> 00:05:40,120
who wanted to leave Romania
of their own free will
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00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:44,400
but weren't allowed to
because of the political conditions.
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00:05:44,680 --> 00:05:47,040
It was the purchase of freedom!
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00:06:23,880 --> 00:06:26,240
I don't know of any precedent,
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00:06:26,400 --> 00:06:29,160
of any other such case in history.
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00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:32,400
I think the nature and dimension
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00:06:32,560 --> 00:06:35,000
of this operation were unique.
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00:06:44,960 --> 00:06:48,160
It began rather like an adventure,
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00:06:49,640 --> 00:06:54,560
which required quite
a bit of courage and perseverance.
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00:06:56,520 --> 00:07:00,160
All sorts of things
could have happened to me.
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00:07:00,760 --> 00:07:04,680
One had an idea of how the
Eastern Bloc secret services worked.
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00:07:04,920 --> 00:07:06,680
It was risky!
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00:07:06,960 --> 00:07:11,000
Of course I took the risk,
because I too believed in the cause.
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00:07:13,120 --> 00:07:16,800
I travelled as a lawyer !
as a tourist, practically !
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00:07:16,960 --> 00:07:20,400
without any diplomatic
(or any other kind) of protection,
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00:07:20,680 --> 00:07:24,680
and one never knew
who was on the other side.
47
00:07:26,600 --> 00:07:32,080
The presumed partner was
the Securitate, the Romanian secret police...
48
00:07:36,440 --> 00:07:40,680
It had an extremely
bad reputation in Europe.
49
00:07:42,840 --> 00:07:47,160
As the Stasi ! the East German
secret police ! used to do
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00:07:47,800 --> 00:07:55,600
the Securitate created a file on me
File no. 3673, codename EDUARD.
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00:07:58,160 --> 00:08:00,440
Eduard, that was me!
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00:08:07,240 --> 00:08:10,800
Hüsch was a highly dependable,
secretive man,
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00:08:11,040 --> 00:08:14,400
highly regarded by his own party.
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00:08:14,560 --> 00:08:17,160
He was the man to trust!
And we did.
55
00:08:17,360 --> 00:08:20,160
I mean, he did all that under
four federal chancellors!
56
00:08:20,400 --> 00:08:23,520
And this had to be approved
again each time.
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00:08:23,720 --> 00:08:27,240
Back then it was a secret, and
it has remained one, if I may say so,
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00:08:27,480 --> 00:08:30,960
to this day ! unknown
to the general public.
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00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:33,520
Key politicians were aware of
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00:08:33,720 --> 00:08:36,840
the issue of this ransom, of course.
They played dumb.
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00:08:37,040 --> 00:08:39,480
It didn't play any role
in domestic policy.
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00:08:39,880 --> 00:08:44,480
We were interested in helping the people.
This was our governing rule.
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00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:48,920
And if it was only possible
through secret negotiations,
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00:08:49,880 --> 00:08:54,120
then these negotiations
had to be carried out confidentially.
65
00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:06,680
The governments washed their hands
of this matter and passed it on to us.
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00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:08,880
They said: "Talk to them!"
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00:09:09,280 --> 00:09:11,440
"Don't ask us.
They are the ones in charge."
68
00:09:11,640 --> 00:09:15,640
But it was not true. Because
behind us stood the government.
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00:09:16,240 --> 00:09:19,600
That is, both the German
and the Romanian governments.
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00:09:21,400 --> 00:09:24,480
As far as authority and
responsibility went,
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00:09:24,680 --> 00:09:27,120
we were not allowed
to do what we did.
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00:09:27,360 --> 00:09:31,360
So from the point of view of law
in Germany and Romania alike,
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00:09:31,560 --> 00:09:34,160
what we did was illegal.
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00:09:42,560 --> 00:09:47,680
The negotiations took place
in a back room of the Hotel Ambasador,
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00:09:47,960 --> 00:09:51,960
which was not especially inviting !
I called it a sleazy dump once.
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00:09:53,120 --> 00:09:57,120
The first condition was:
absolute confidentiality.
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00:09:57,360 --> 00:10:00,920
In case of breach of confidentiality,
we would abort the mission.
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00:10:01,200 --> 00:10:04,280
Second: there would be
no German lists [of names],
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00:10:04,520 --> 00:10:11,000
only confirmations for the number
of approved emigrations.
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00:10:12,440 --> 00:10:17,160
The Romanian side expected some sort
of financial compensation in return
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00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:23,560
through a method of payment
that remained to be developed in detail.
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00:10:24,440 --> 00:10:28,200
In cash, in Deutschmarks...
83
00:10:28,400 --> 00:10:30,920
with no receipts.
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00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:35,920
Romania's relations with Germany
were, however,
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00:10:36,200 --> 00:10:40,600
better than its relations
with any of the other Western countries.
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00:10:41,800 --> 00:10:46,320
This was justified, of course,
because Germany was interested
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00:10:46,480 --> 00:10:50,640
in retrieving a number of ethnic
Germans from Romania.
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00:11:01,040 --> 00:11:04,360
For the first time, the Federal Republic
has welcomed a communist head of state,
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00:11:04,520 --> 00:11:06,840
the Romanian president Ceaușescu.
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00:11:19,800 --> 00:11:24,320
Thank you for offering us
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00:11:24,480 --> 00:11:28,800
these wonderful works by Beethoven.
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00:11:41,880 --> 00:11:45,880
Of course, on the Romanian side,
there were no humanitarian considerations.
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00:11:46,920 --> 00:11:50,920
There were only strong
economic interests behind it all.
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00:11:58,880 --> 00:12:02,080
The issue was quite unique
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00:12:02,240 --> 00:12:04,720
because there had been no expulsions
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00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:09,480
from Romania after WWII.
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00:12:10,160 --> 00:12:14,160
While Germans had to leave their homeland
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00:12:14,320 --> 00:12:16,520
in other European countries,
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00:12:16,680 --> 00:12:20,000
in Romania they were allowed to stay.
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00:12:22,840 --> 00:12:25,240
Romania had a different attitude
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00:12:25,400 --> 00:12:28,240
because it had acknowledged
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00:12:28,400 --> 00:12:33,120
how important the German minority was
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00:12:33,280 --> 00:12:37,320
to the economic development of the country.
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00:12:37,720 --> 00:12:42,440
That is why this problem reached
such magnitude only in Romania.
105
00:14:21,160 --> 00:14:26,240
The government has a responsibility
towards people with German background.
106
00:14:26,720 --> 00:14:30,200
According to our constitution,
they are Germans.
107
00:14:30,720 --> 00:14:34,360
So if they are in need,
you are bound to help.
108
00:14:35,160 --> 00:14:38,600
With Romania, it was
emigration or nothing.
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00:14:38,840 --> 00:14:43,360
We could not help on-site.
So only the alternative remained.
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00:14:43,720 --> 00:14:47,440
The deal was: if you pay,
you can have them all.
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00:14:47,680 --> 00:14:50,320
All right, so we paid!
112
00:14:50,600 --> 00:14:54,040
This is the suitcase
in which the money was carried.
113
00:14:54,560 --> 00:15:00,600
This briefcase that I used could fit
about 6 to 6.5 million DM.
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00:15:01,680 --> 00:15:04,680
You had to press the notes a bit,
if they were new.
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00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:07,720
That way more would go in.
116
00:15:07,960 --> 00:15:11,160
If there were used notes,
which are known to be rather dirty,
117
00:15:11,400 --> 00:15:14,600
then you could not fit that many in.
118
00:15:14,880 --> 00:15:16,800
But you still had
to press them down a bit!
119
00:15:23,600 --> 00:15:28,080
All right, imagine you
had to carry 20 million.
120
00:15:28,520 --> 00:15:30,960
I don't know how
you set about doing that
121
00:15:31,240 --> 00:15:34,600
You must do it while keeping
absolute secrecy on the topic,
122
00:15:34,840 --> 00:15:38,840
on the time, on the operations.
123
00:15:39,480 --> 00:15:43,120
On one occasion I was even accompanied
by a police escort.
124
00:15:43,400 --> 00:15:48,040
I had to transport
20!24 million DM, to be precise.
125
00:15:48,560 --> 00:15:52,400
There were amounts
in the millions sometimes.
126
00:15:52,840 --> 00:15:57,120
I had a gun,
which I carried with me.
127
00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:00,400
Of course,
not in the Romanian Embassy.
128
00:16:00,680 --> 00:16:04,400
Then I would leave it in the car.
129
00:16:08,160 --> 00:16:10,720
But I carried it in the street,
130
00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:13,400
or here, in my office.
131
00:16:23,760 --> 00:16:27,360
This is the table where
many negotiations took place:
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00:16:27,720 --> 00:16:32,480
calculations and
the preparation of new contracts.
133
00:16:32,920 --> 00:16:36,200
They were usually signed
in Bucharest.
134
00:16:36,680 --> 00:16:40,240
Well, there they had microphones,
here we did not!
135
00:16:41,880 --> 00:16:43,200
Top Secret
136
00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:46,960
Confidential Agreement
137
00:16:50,280 --> 00:16:52,440
Special Agreement
138
00:16:54,920 --> 00:16:57,560
Bucharest - Nürnberg train ticket:
216, - DM
139
00:17:04,040 --> 00:17:07,240
monthly emigration permits
140
00:17:17,320 --> 00:17:20,400
11,000 persons per year
141
00:17:27,520 --> 00:17:31,160
With Dr. Hüsch we did nothing other
than settlements.
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00:17:31,720 --> 00:17:34,000
He would ask me for the lists.
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00:17:34,280 --> 00:17:37,320
I would present the list
of those who had left,
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00:17:37,480 --> 00:17:39,760
not who had been approved.
145
00:17:40,120 --> 00:17:42,760
The approvals were more numerous
than the people who left,
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00:17:42,880 --> 00:17:45,360
as they could not all leave at once.
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00:17:45,520 --> 00:17:48,120
Based on that list, Dr. Hüsch would say
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00:17:48,520 --> 00:17:50,320
...they must enter Germany!
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00:17:50,480 --> 00:17:52,960
Some did not set foot in
the Federal Republic at all,
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00:17:53,200 --> 00:17:55,600
but went directly
to America or Austria.
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00:17:55,800 --> 00:17:57,960
So we said
We are not paying for those!
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00:17:58,200 --> 00:18:00,520
Only for those
who actually enter Germany.
153
00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:03,320
And then we would calculate
and Dr. Hüsch
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00:18:03,520 --> 00:18:06,080
would either provide a cheque
or make a direct transfer.
155
00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:09,160
I preferred direct transfers,
which kept things simple.
156
00:18:09,280 --> 00:18:10,760
Anyway, not cash.
157
00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:14,760
This was the beginning
of the list business, so to speak.
158
00:18:15,160 --> 00:18:18,920
The accounting meetings
took place every two or three months.
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00:18:20,600 --> 00:18:29,000
And that meant 2000 names or 1000,
depending on the flow of departures.
160
00:18:30,040 --> 00:18:33,280
In any case,
they had to be ethnic Germans.
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00:18:33,680 --> 00:18:37,680
The only problem was what
we should do with the ethnic Germans
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00:18:38,040 --> 00:18:41,680
who had Romanian spouses
163
00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:45,600
We handled those cases
rather generously.
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00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:49,520
Let me give you an example:
in August 1983
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00:18:49,920 --> 00:18:54,720
we settled for February,
March, April, May and June 1983.
166
00:18:55,920 --> 00:19:00,840
According to our calculations,
the Romanian side had to receive
167
00:19:02,200 --> 00:19:10,360
11,534,636.90 DM.
168
00:19:10,680 --> 00:19:14,680
After the amounts were calculated,
they were recorded in a document,
169
00:19:14,960 --> 00:19:19,800
per each month,
where you had, for instance:
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00:19:21,160 --> 00:19:26,480
claims from Romania
for March '83: 936 people.
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00:19:27,880 --> 00:19:31,240
Not identified: 42 people;
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00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:34,960
listed twice: 6 people;
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00:19:35,960 --> 00:19:39,960
not taken into consideration
because of the second entry,
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00:19:40,400 --> 00:19:42,560
since we are not paying twice:
one person.
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00:19:43,120 --> 00:19:45,280
And foreign ethnicity !
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00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:49,760
it should actually have been
not of German ethnicity: 2 people.
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00:19:50,800 --> 00:19:53,640
"The approvals were more numerous
than the people who left,
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00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:56,360
as they could not all leave at once."
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00:19:56,600 --> 00:20:04,960
So the result was 885 people, not 936,
and we agreed to pay for these people.
180
00:20:05,320 --> 00:20:07,120
... the calculation of the overall sum...
181
00:20:13,760 --> 00:20:17,480
I do believe that Germany
was well aware of the fact
182
00:20:17,920 --> 00:20:20,560
that the emigration of
the Germans from Romania,
183
00:20:20,880 --> 00:20:23,480
the Transylvanian Saxons
and the Banat Swabians,
184
00:20:23,800 --> 00:20:29,160
meant the extinction
of a centuries-old cultural tradition.
185
00:20:29,840 --> 00:20:33,560
It was clear to me that Germany
would pay for me as well.
186
00:20:33,840 --> 00:20:39,880
It was a business transaction,
you were handled by bookkeeping.
187
00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:46,880
Needless to say,
I didn't have a good feeling about it.
188
00:20:47,160 --> 00:20:49,200
No question about that...
189
00:21:00,640 --> 00:21:05,200
This is where I live now,
in Sandhausen, Heckengarten.
190
00:21:08,120 --> 00:21:11,800
Behind and around this area !
the burden: streets bearing the names
191
00:21:12,080 --> 00:21:17,960
of Mörike, Hauptmann, Lessing, Brecht,
Hölderlin, Kant and Hegel.
192
00:21:19,360 --> 00:21:22,680
But if you look closely, though,
they are only alleys.
193
00:21:22,840 --> 00:21:24,000
Will everything be fine?
194
00:21:24,880 --> 00:21:27,040
The view is straight over Odenwald.
195
00:21:27,440 --> 00:21:31,640
And no sooner had I learned to write
again that I now have to learn anew.
196
00:21:31,800 --> 00:21:34,800
The new orthography requires it.
197
00:21:35,040 --> 00:21:37,920
But this I can avoid.
198
00:21:43,040 --> 00:21:46,640
The issue of family reunification
originated in the 1943 treaty
199
00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:50,440
between Hitler and Antonescu,
200
00:21:51,200 --> 00:21:56,720
as Germans from Romania were allowed
! as it were !
201
00:21:57,400 --> 00:21:59,560
to enlist of their own free will !
202
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:03,160
that is, as people said,
of their own "compulsory free will",
203
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:06,400
in German military units.
204
00:22:42,360 --> 00:22:46,360
The worst thing about
coming to terms with the past,
205
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:49,320
regarding Nazism in Transylvania,
206
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:53,160
is that it caused
ambivalence in the family,
207
00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:57,080
because people could have two ideas
in their own family.
208
00:22:57,320 --> 00:23:00,040
Not all Saxons
were that interested
209
00:23:00,280 --> 00:23:06,000
in considering that being German
was to be of the highest value.
210
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:09,920
There were Saxons who wanted
to live with the Romanians.
211
00:23:10,120 --> 00:23:13,600
Yes, you speak German,
yes, you have your German schools,
212
00:23:13,800 --> 00:23:19,080
but you do not feel you are part
of this Aryan people!
213
00:23:19,440 --> 00:23:21,760
So those people
did not think in such terms.
214
00:23:21,960 --> 00:23:26,000
And then there were others
who swallowed this idea.
215
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:29,320
We were in a special situation,
216
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:34,920
as my father's uncle,
Anton-Peter, was the Gauleiter of Banat
217
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:40,720
and his role was to spread propaganda
so that the Swabians in Banat
218
00:23:41,040 --> 00:23:45,280
should voluntarily allow themselves
to be drafted into the German army,
219
00:23:45,600 --> 00:23:49,640
and his own nephew, that is, my father,
could not stomach this idea.
220
00:23:50,520 --> 00:23:54,600
This led to huge tension.
221
00:24:21,360 --> 00:24:24,840
Young men who had been soldiers
222
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:28,240
and had not served
in the Romanian army,
223
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:31,560
but in the German Wehrmacht,
224
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:35,400
were discharged directly
in the Federal Republic of Germany.
225
00:24:35,680 --> 00:24:41,760
That meant that a son or a brother
from the family was already in West Germany
226
00:24:42,360 --> 00:24:46,760
and that's why they could
talk of family reunification.
227
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:52,720
The parents wanted to be with their son,
the brother with his brother,
228
00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:56,960
the sister with her brother
or the wife with her husband.
229
00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:01,200
So there were always humanitarian
points of view at play.
230
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:10,800
Expropriation began as soon
as March 1945!
231
00:25:11,280 --> 00:25:14,160
There was a special decree
of the Romanian government,
232
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,560
directing that
ONLY Germans were expropriated.
233
00:25:17,800 --> 00:25:21,280
Those Romanians who had property
were not expropriated before 1948.
234
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:27,280
For a Banat Swabian, the land,
his land was actually everything
235
00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:30,040
People simply didn't get that.
236
00:25:30,280 --> 00:25:35,360
As soon as my great-grandmother
heard that our land was gone,
237
00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:41,200
that it had been nationalised,
expropriated, she kept saying:
238
00:25:41,880 --> 00:25:48,040
No! That cannot be.
We are in the land register!
239
00:25:49,160 --> 00:25:55,320
She could not understand
that one's land could be registered
240
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:58,760
and then someone
could come and say:
241
00:25:58,960 --> 00:26:01,600
This doesn't belong
to you anymore,
242
00:26:01,840 --> 00:26:07,640
now you are at best a wage worker
on your own land.
243
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:12,600
So that was a huge blow
to our confidence.
244
00:26:20,720 --> 00:26:25,640
After the war everyone tried
to make do somehow in this country,
245
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:29,800
although they had been
expropriated.
246
00:26:29,960 --> 00:26:33,560
According to the motto
life must go on,
247
00:26:34,120 --> 00:26:39,280
people tried to make the best
of the situation they were in.
248
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:52,720
- Hello Hansi!
- Hello Franz!
249
00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:02,920
I went to his house to say goodbye.
250
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:09,120
I cried, we had grown up together.
251
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:22,880
Plastic windows...
252
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:39,920
See...
Here lies Katharina Bittenbinder.
253
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:42,760
She was his wife,
my grandfather's.
254
00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:44,760
But she died in Germany.
255
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,800
And now we want
to bring my mother here, too.
256
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:51,680
She also died in Germany.
257
00:27:52,360 --> 00:27:54,680
And then we're all here!
258
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:04,000
My mother told me that,
when she was deported to Russia,
259
00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:07,080
some 55-year-old women and
13-year-old girls went as well.
260
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:12,000
Some pregnant women were taken too,
although they should have been exempted,
261
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:14,680
or women with children
less than one year old.
262
00:28:15,560 --> 00:28:20,240
They even deported two
mentally disabled people,
263
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:22,720
who died miserably there,
of course.
264
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:26,080
Wiseschdia had about 500 inhabitants.
265
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:31,840
All in all, around 200 people
disappeared from Wiseschdia alone.
266
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:36,280
Only men over 45
267
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,880
and women over 30 were left
in the village, and the children.
268
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:44,240
Besides them, all these villages
were practically depopulated!
269
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:21,840
While being transported to Russia,
between 15 January and !
270
00:29:22,040 --> 00:29:28,560
! it lasted until 7 February 1945,
when they arrived there !
271
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:35,280
my mother found out that
she was pregnant - she missed her period.
272
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:39,720
Less than nine months later,
on 30 September,
273
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:44,440
I was born in Nakievo,
in eastern Ukraine.
274
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:50,080
She had taken two pictures
of her daughters with her
275
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:55,760
and ! on the day of my birth
276
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:00,040
and then during her journey home !
277
00:30:00,240 --> 00:30:04,160
she wrote this text
on the back of these pictures:
278
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:10,360
Today, 30 September 1945,
my little Hartwig Joseph was born.
279
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:15,440
I see him beside me,
a small helpless human being,
280
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:18,600
so gentle and sweet like a flower.
281
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:24,760
After these bitter agonizing days,
I feel deeply happy
282
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:27,800
that I may hold him in my arms.
283
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:31,960
He is my everything,
the only thing I have here.
284
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:36,520
How happy ! she now speaks
directly to her children !
285
00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:40,360
how happy was I with both of you too,
my little girls.
286
00:30:40,680 --> 00:30:42,600
But I was not alone then!
287
00:30:42,880 --> 00:30:48,080
There were so many people there
who loved us more than one can say.
288
00:30:49,640 --> 00:30:53,880
I am alone here ! here she changes
perspective again and addresses her mother,
289
00:30:54,200 --> 00:30:57,160
I am alone here,
mother dear.
290
00:30:57,400 --> 00:31:00,240
You don't know what it's like
to be so alone.
291
00:31:00,640 --> 00:31:04,960
And when I look at this photo
of my sweet lovely little girls,
292
00:31:05,360 --> 00:31:09,040
then this great sorrow
presses upon me twice as hard.
293
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:13,840
Only when I am with you once again,
will I thank our Lord for every day
294
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:19,320
that He allows me to live
with my loved ones in our homeland.
295
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:35,400
This picture was taken in the autumn of 1946,
so some 7 or 8 months
296
00:31:35,800 --> 00:31:42,440
after I had returned home to Romania
from the Soviet deportation,
297
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:45,720
with my mother, who is holding me
in her arms here.
298
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:49,160
Today we see the Frankfurt skyline
in the background.
299
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:53,440
In 1946, no one could
have imagined that!!!
300
00:31:56,520 --> 00:32:01,320
One more thing!
There was this Baragan action in 1951,
301
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:04,480
the relocation of the Banat Swabians
302
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:09,320
who lived 30 km from the Serbian border.
303
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:12,680
They were abandoned in the middle of
the Baragan steppe,
304
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:15,400
where they spent their first winter
in earth houses.
305
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:22,880
After this, their trust in Romanians
or in that society was totally lost.
306
00:32:44,280 --> 00:32:48,840
They broke down gates and doors
in the middle of the night
307
00:32:49,120 --> 00:32:51,760
and they were suddenly there,
these soldiers with their weapons
308
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:54,680
and none of us knew
what was going on.
309
00:32:54,920 --> 00:32:58,720
Then, within 2 hours' time
they were all gone.
310
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,360
20 kilos each ! that is all that those
poor people could take with them.
311
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:04,560
Then they were loaded
into cattle wagons.
312
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:08,480
They waited 2 or 3 more days
at the train station.
313
00:33:08,800 --> 00:33:11,960
Then at some point they left,
314
00:33:12,360 --> 00:33:16,240
loud sirens shrieking all around.
315
00:33:16,560 --> 00:33:20,560
My mother suffered all her life
because, whenever a train came,
316
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:24,760
she could still hear
this locomotive.
317
00:33:25,040 --> 00:33:29,040
That night was frightening to
everyone in the community.
318
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:33,960
About a third of the people there
were deported to the Baragan Plain.
319
00:33:34,480 --> 00:33:37,480
That is the so-called
Romanian Siberia.
320
00:33:37,600 --> 00:33:41,760
After 5 months we heard that
my great-grandfather had frozen to death.
321
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:46,240
I regard it as a great injustice
that we, the Banat Swabians,
322
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:50,320
should have been thrown
into the same pot with Nazi Germany.
323
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:53,720
We, the Banat Swabians,
324
00:33:53,920 --> 00:33:56,800
started neither the First -,
nor the Second World War.
325
00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:00,160
But we were held responsible.
326
00:34:00,560 --> 00:34:03,960
That left me deeply scarred
and made me think:
327
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:06,280
you need to leave this place
at some point.
328
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:10,240
And then sport
came to my rescue.
329
00:34:13,480 --> 00:34:14,880
The Floreasca sports hall in the capital.
330
00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:16,960
The Romanian handball players !
in white T-shirts !
331
00:34:17,160 --> 00:34:19,840
have successfully re-entered
the arena of world supremacy.
332
00:34:20,160 --> 00:34:24,480
Graduation exam: the difficult match
against the world champions,
333
00:34:24,680 --> 00:34:27,760
the Czechoslovakian team, was won
definitively by the Romanian players
334
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:29,320
with a score of 21 to 13!
335
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:37,960
I was seen as an unpolished diamond
336
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:43,520
who could, later on, hold the flag
of Romanian sport a little higher.
337
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,240
So I enjoyed certain privileges
in this state that,
338
00:34:48,520 --> 00:34:54,920
because of my ethnic origins,
did not like me so much.
339
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,960
Then we went on a tournament to
Hamburg, Essen Rheinhausen, Köln.
340
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:05,440
I stayed with the team !
we won all the matches!
341
00:35:07,720 --> 00:35:09,560
I was standing there
as a German
342
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:15,680
and they played the Romanian anthem.
We all sang it. Me too!
343
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:21,000
Then the German anthem was played
in Kiel or somewhere else
344
00:35:21,720 --> 00:35:23,480
You know how the verse goes:
345
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:25,840
Two souls
are dwelling in my breast!
346
00:35:26,000 --> 00:35:27,480
Well, it wasn't easy.
347
00:35:28,560 --> 00:35:32,360
I defected in Köln,
at midnight sharp.
348
00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:36,560
I had no idea
about these things.
349
00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:39,960
I went to a man in a pub
and asked him:
350
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:41,960
Do you have your car here?
351
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:46,240
He confirmed and then
things took their course.
352
00:35:53,720 --> 00:35:55,440
I was separated from my family...
353
00:35:56,040 --> 00:36:00,240
I assumed that I wouldn't get to see
my parents and my sister,
354
00:36:00,400 --> 00:36:04,920
! to whom I was very attached,
for the rest of my life.
355
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:10,360
Of course, my father lost
his position as a doctor.
356
00:36:10,600 --> 00:36:13,000
That was a huge problem.
357
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:18,320
The death penalty was actually given
for what I had done:
358
00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:20,800
defecting to the West.
359
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:26,560
Since I was a soldier,
I would have been condemned to death.
360
00:36:27,960 --> 00:36:29,560
European Cup finals.
361
00:36:30,160 --> 00:36:32,400
Hans Günther Schmidt in the centre.
362
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:37,800
He is the goal scorer
of his club [Vfl Gummersbach].
363
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:42,720
9 goals in the European Cup finals
against Steaua Bucharest alone!
364
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:46,320
Hansi Schmidt was above all
! for me, of course,
365
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:50,200
! less so for Genscher, who was not
so enthusiastic about sport !
366
00:36:50,800 --> 00:36:53,960
so for me, he was an important and
well-known figure in handball.
367
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:57,080
We knew that he had come here
with the Romanian team,
368
00:36:57,320 --> 00:37:02,040
that he had defected
and had then been sentenced in Romania.
369
00:37:03,200 --> 00:37:06,560
Then there were extensive
amnesty negotiations,
370
00:37:06,800 --> 00:37:08,720
which also cost
a lot of money.
371
00:37:08,920 --> 00:37:14,120
The solution was to have Hansi Schmidt
given amnesty and thus remove the obstacle
372
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:19,880
that prevented his parents' and
his sister's emigration from Romania.
373
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:23,040
And it worked.
374
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:26,800
We said that if
they were allowed to leave,
375
00:37:27,360 --> 00:37:31,280
we would make another special payment,
which we did.
376
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:33,040
Hansi Schmidt again!
377
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:35,400
Yes, the Gummersbacher
is really first class!
378
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:40,840
If I remember well, we paid the
equivalent cost of a dentist's equipment:
379
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:43,760
70.000 ! 72.000 DM.
380
00:38:11,960 --> 00:38:15,080
The fact is that Romanians have fled
381
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:20,240
and all the German Saxons from Romania
have gone away and left the land empty...
382
00:38:20,600 --> 00:38:23,320
So why wonder now that
there are more gypsies?
383
00:38:24,200 --> 00:38:26,000
I mean, it is pure mathematics.
384
00:38:26,240 --> 00:38:30,120
That is why there are so many gypsies,
because everyone else has fled.
385
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:49,840
So this was the rear side,
the bellows of the organ.
386
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:54,760
That was probably the upper side...
of the bellows,
387
00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:56,880
which was used to pump.
388
00:38:57,040 --> 00:38:59,680
And this used to be there,
at the back.
389
00:39:00,680 --> 00:39:04,880
I remember, when we were children,
you also helped pump air into the organ
390
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:09,160
We would do that every now and then.
391
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:25,560
When I left in 1979, it looked as if
it would be another 200 years
392
00:39:25,720 --> 00:39:30,440
before all the Saxons
in Transylvania could leave.
393
00:39:30,840 --> 00:39:32,560
And a lot of them wanted to leave!
394
00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:36,280
But then it went quite fast.
395
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:41,600
Twelve years later,
here in this village...
396
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:44,800
... there were practically
no Saxons left.
397
00:39:53,720 --> 00:39:55,160
I had a price.
398
00:39:55,400 --> 00:40:01,640
But when I think that it was somewhere
between 2 and 10 thousand DM,
399
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:07,200
then we were sold quite cheaply,
weren't we?
400
00:40:13,880 --> 00:40:18,320
In the 70's, a lot of Transylvanians
wanted to leave Romania.
401
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:23,000
Some, for economic reasons,
402
00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:25,960
others for the love of freedom,
more or less.
403
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:30,160
I left because
I could not stand the lying anymore
404
00:40:30,400 --> 00:40:33,680
and I wanted to travel
and see the world.
405
00:40:40,440 --> 00:40:44,440
If you can travel !
that is how I imagined it !
406
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:49,040
then you can come back
at some point.
407
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:52,040
Or you may travel a lot and
never come back
408
00:40:52,280 --> 00:40:54,800
because you have found
something better somewhere else.
409
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:58,960
But freedom means being allowed
to decide for yourself
410
00:40:59,240 --> 00:41:03,240
where you want to settle down
and try your luck.
411
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:29,280
There was this slogan !
Helmut Schmidt, take us with you!
412
00:41:29,520 --> 00:41:31,960
and on the German side
there was the statement in the press:
413
00:41:32,160 --> 00:41:34,920
The Chancellor has taken care of it.
414
00:41:35,120 --> 00:41:38,000
I could not comment on that.
And I did not.
415
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:42,040
... humanitarian issues that regard
family reunification
416
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:45,640
and marriages between
citizens of both countries,
417
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:50,840
based on resolutions confirmed by
bilateral and international documents
418
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:55,920
will continue to be handled
in good faith.
419
00:41:56,320 --> 00:42:01,040
They really swindled him.
First they raised the price per capita.
420
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:06,600
Then, there was no guarantee regarding
the number of emigrations.
421
00:42:07,320 --> 00:42:09,360
That was already bad enough.
422
00:42:10,080 --> 00:42:13,760
The existence in Romania
423
00:42:14,240 --> 00:42:18,080
of a nationality of German origin,
424
00:42:18,360 --> 00:42:20,280
today Romanian citizens,
425
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:25,440
should constitute a bridge
in developing the relations
426
00:42:25,720 --> 00:42:30,720
between Romania and
the Federal Republic of Germany.
427
00:42:32,960 --> 00:42:35,640
I really did not get my hopes up.
428
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:40,400
I already had a plan
to get out one way or another.
429
00:42:40,720 --> 00:42:46,480
I had had enough of the workers'
and peasants' paradise!
430
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:54,000
That was one of my strongest reasons:
to get away from the fabrications.
431
00:43:01,040 --> 00:43:04,040
In the last couple of years
before my departure,
432
00:43:04,240 --> 00:43:07,160
during and after
my military service,
433
00:43:07,400 --> 00:43:11,160
I had recurring contacts
with the secret police.
434
00:43:14,040 --> 00:43:18,800
It's known that most people who talked
to the Securitate were informers.
435
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:21,800
Otherwise, the Securitate came
and broke your teeth.
436
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:26,360
How come they did not break your teeth?
So you must have been an informer, right?
437
00:43:28,360 --> 00:43:32,360
They hinted repeatedly that
we could actually work well together
438
00:43:32,600 --> 00:43:36,600
and that it would be
mutually advantageous.
439
00:43:36,920 --> 00:43:41,520
I always played the card
of my nationality and said:
440
00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:44,080
How come you want a German?
441
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:47,040
How come you want me
as a collaborator
442
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,960
when my relatives
are in Germany?"
443
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:54,840
Those were considered the least safe
people, the greatest traitors
444
00:43:55,040 --> 00:43:58,000
But apparently they wanted me
for that very reason.
445
00:43:58,240 --> 00:44:03,120
What bothered me most
was their deviousness ! the fact
446
00:44:03,720 --> 00:44:08,800
that they were always so subtle and
got you into embarrassing situations
447
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:13,640
in front of your colleagues,
friends and relatives.
448
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:21,240
In 1979 I arranged to escape
with a friend.
449
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:26,360
We planned it in detail and
when the decision was made,
450
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:32,720
we left Sighișoara quite easily and
a couple of days later
451
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:36,600
we crossed the green border
into Yugoslavia.
452
00:44:38,960 --> 00:44:40,720
I was glad to be alive,
453
00:44:40,960 --> 00:44:44,280
and that my bones were sound
and that I still had my teeth!
454
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:52,960
One evening a couple of weeks later,
a fellow from the Securitate,
455
00:44:53,200 --> 00:44:56,560
whom I knew, came with another one
to my grandfather's door !
456
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,760
! that was in Lörrach [Germany],
for I was living at his place.
457
00:45:02,160 --> 00:45:06,160
They wanted to recruit me,
they wanted me to work with them,
458
00:45:06,480 --> 00:45:08,800
for the good of Romania.
459
00:45:08,960 --> 00:45:14,760
Probably in Germany,
as a Romanian agent.
460
00:45:15,560 --> 00:45:18,800
It wasn't difficult for me
to get rid of them.
461
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:22,400
They went away and
I never heard from them again.
462
00:45:30,320 --> 00:45:34,320
Then I left Germany for Switzerland
and worked there.
463
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:37,280
In 1980 I left for Canada.
464
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:46,360
Something bothered me in Germany.
465
00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:50,440
It was not that half-utopian country
that the Saxons,
466
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:54,800
the ethnic Germans,
had dreamt of.
467
00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:00,560
Something was missing.
468
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:04,800
The human factor,
as Graham Greene called it.
469
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:08,720
Something that should be there.
470
00:46:08,960 --> 00:46:13,240
It is not enough to have a full
fridge, to drive the newest car.
471
00:46:13,560 --> 00:46:15,960
What is missing is
the human element
472
00:46:40,680 --> 00:46:43,560
I am very grateful that !
473
00:46:44,520 --> 00:46:48,920
this sounds really cynical now,
but that's how it is !
474
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:56,520
that history took the course
that it actually did.
475
00:47:11,560 --> 00:47:13,600
I liked to dress well and
476
00:47:13,800 --> 00:47:17,600
wanted to stand out through clothes
that came from the West,
477
00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:20,360
for then I would be
somehow different,
478
00:47:20,600 --> 00:47:23,040
probably ! I felt !
somewhat better.
479
00:47:23,280 --> 00:47:26,840
That's what I wanted
when I was eighteen.
480
00:47:29,600 --> 00:47:35,960
Germany was the country where
you could shop to your heart's desire.
481
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:40,080
I can still well remember
a Neckermann slogan:
482
00:47:40,640 --> 00:47:44,640
If to Gina you aspire,
Neckermann's for your attire!
483
00:47:44,960 --> 00:47:46,960
They meant Gina Lollobrigida.
484
00:47:47,160 --> 00:47:49,800
And I clearly aspired to Gina!
485
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:54,600
So I was craving this consumerism!
486
00:48:04,840 --> 00:48:08,640
If the devil had proposed a pact
to me, running something like this:
487
00:48:08,880 --> 00:48:12,720
Hartwig, you now have the opportunity
to dispense with your past,
488
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:17,680
with the last 31 years,
and replace them
489
00:48:17,880 --> 00:48:21,640
with a purely
German experience.
490
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:26,280
You have no more
Romanian background,
491
00:48:27,760 --> 00:48:33,040
I would have accepted
this offer with delight in 1976.
492
00:48:34,360 --> 00:48:38,360
Only later did I
gradually begin to discover
493
00:48:38,680 --> 00:48:44,760
what a huge treasure it was, and still is,
to have this particular background,
494
00:48:45,400 --> 00:48:52,240
namely not altogether German,
495
00:48:52,800 --> 00:48:56,640
not purely German.
496
00:48:57,440 --> 00:49:02,640
And in no way, IN NO WAY,
would I want to do away with that.
497
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:13,960
I am glad that I spent my childhood
in Banat and not somewhere in Hessen
498
00:49:14,920 --> 00:49:17,520
and this because I was
very well prepared
499
00:49:17,760 --> 00:49:21,480
for the globalised world
due to my experience in Banat,
500
00:49:21,720 --> 00:49:26,640
where there were
so many national minorities.
501
00:49:42,160 --> 00:49:47,800
My sister came to Romania
and took pictures of me.
502
00:49:48,280 --> 00:49:50,160
My sister's boyfriend
503
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:55,160
went to the passport issuing authority
in Frankfurt with my pictures
504
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:58,840
and applied for a passport
with my photos.
505
00:49:59,040 --> 00:50:04,520
Since we were of similar ages
and heights, no one noticed.
506
00:50:05,120 --> 00:50:09,520
I had booked a trip
to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast,
507
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:16,600
without an overnight stay !
a 16-hour trip that was approved.
508
00:50:17,480 --> 00:50:23,600
Then in Bulgaria I took his passport
and went to Istanbul with it.
509
00:50:24,480 --> 00:50:29,360
And in Istanbul I went
to the Hilton Hotel
510
00:50:29,800 --> 00:50:34,920
and I spent two nights there,
looking onto the Bosphorus.
511
00:50:35,600 --> 00:50:38,200
I really thought
I was entitled to that!
512
00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:44,600
I am frightened when I think about it
today, but that's the way it was.
513
00:50:47,880 --> 00:50:55,240
This reconstructed mediaeval tower
is what I imagined Germany to be.
514
00:50:56,760 --> 00:51:01,200
These skyscrapers
were not here in 1976 yet.
515
00:51:01,760 --> 00:51:03,960
Not one of them, I think!
516
00:51:06,960 --> 00:51:11,360
I was 31 years old back then,
I was healthy, well trained.
517
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:16,240
A couple of years later
I already started to pay taxes !
518
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:18,760
! quite steep taxes!
519
00:51:19,000 --> 00:51:21,440
I think I was a good deal.
520
00:51:36,520 --> 00:51:38,960
If I had something of
a cultural shock,
521
00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:42,720
it was the permanent
building sites in Frankfurt.
522
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:47,600
Building sites everywhere!
And it is the same today.
523
00:51:48,200 --> 00:51:51,200
Then at some point I complained
and someone told me:
524
00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:54,720
that's the way it has to be in healthy
capitalism. Building all the time.
525
00:51:54,960 --> 00:51:58,960
If nothing is being built, then
it is not good! It seems to be true.
526
00:52:28,160 --> 00:52:34,240
In fact, in Germany too,
as Jack, the normal consumer,
527
00:52:34,920 --> 00:52:38,920
you are nothing more than
just that ! a consumer.
528
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:42,320
The man who goes to work
in order to earn money
529
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:45,400
so that he can come home
and spend it as fast as possible,
530
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:48,920
so that he can go back to work
the following day,
531
00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:52,480
so that he can have more money
in order to buy himself something else
532
00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:55,960
that he absolutely needs
and without which he cannot live.
533
00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:05,840
I only want to have a small farm.
534
00:53:06,680 --> 00:53:08,800
That is why I had a reason
535
00:53:09,040 --> 00:53:11,560
to come back
to Transylvania and to Romania,
536
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:14,760
because agriculture
is really neglected here.
537
00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:17,480
If you think how much
unused land there is here,
538
00:53:17,720 --> 00:53:22,080
how many people work in other
countries to earn a couple of euros
539
00:53:22,560 --> 00:53:24,320
and here everything lies untilled
540
00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:26,880
It is a country with a future.
541
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:30,760
Therefore, the future does not
lie in the West for me anymore,
542
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:35,680
but in the East.
That is, in Transylvania.
543
00:53:46,320 --> 00:53:49,320
The decay of the country
happened gradually,
544
00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:57,480
so that one could not quite
perceive its scope.
545
00:53:57,960 --> 00:54:01,960
But in the early 80's
everything happened so fast
546
00:54:03,760 --> 00:54:05,680
It was the showdown!
547
00:54:21,080 --> 00:54:24,960
And suddenly we read in the newspaper
and heard on the radio
548
00:54:25,360 --> 00:54:29,840
that the Romanian state
had issued a decree
549
00:54:30,160 --> 00:54:34,080
stating that Germans
were allowed to emigrate
550
00:54:34,280 --> 00:54:38,800
only after they had paid back
all their education costs.
551
00:54:39,160 --> 00:54:42,480
This would have been
a very large sum of money for us,
552
00:54:42,880 --> 00:54:45,200
so we would definitely
not been able to pay anymore.
553
00:54:45,720 --> 00:54:49,960
And suddenly the state requires you
to pay your tuition fees
554
00:54:50,200 --> 00:54:51,920
in foreign currency.
555
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:58,160
And it was known
that this foreign currency
556
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:03,120
could be obtained
either from relatives abroad,
557
00:55:03,720 --> 00:55:07,240
or from the black market.
Both ! illegally.
558
00:55:09,080 --> 00:55:15,520
And I spoke to many people:
there was general panic!
559
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:25,600
We would not have wanted the intellectuals !
the engineers, the teachers...
560
00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:28,960
... the lawyers etc. to leave.
It is normal!
561
00:55:29,200 --> 00:55:31,880
After having studied
free of charge...
562
00:55:32,120 --> 00:55:35,720
For both parties
admitted to this:
563
00:55:36,000 --> 00:55:41,520
here you did not pay for high-school,
university, Ph.D's and all that.
564
00:55:41,880 --> 00:55:43,720
On the contrary.
They were given stipends.
565
00:55:43,920 --> 00:55:45,920
So they were even subsidised!
566
00:55:46,240 --> 00:55:48,320
That is a beautiful lie
of the Romanians.
567
00:55:48,560 --> 00:55:52,560
First of all, there were many children;
there were many retired people.
568
00:55:52,800 --> 00:55:59,600
The proportion of active population
was perhaps a third or a quarter.
569
00:56:00,360 --> 00:56:03,000
We took over the entire
burden of retired persons.
570
00:56:03,240 --> 00:56:07,240
We took over the entire burden of the
children's education, costs included.
571
00:56:07,680 --> 00:56:13,520
I do not mean burden
as imposition, but as expenses.
572
00:56:14,360 --> 00:56:17,800
We were supposedly getting
trained people in return.
573
00:56:18,040 --> 00:56:22,320
We could not employ a Romanian
teacher here ! even if he was German.
574
00:56:22,640 --> 00:56:24,680
He needed qualifications for that.
575
00:56:25,040 --> 00:56:28,800
These people did not have
the money to pay.
576
00:56:30,280 --> 00:56:33,320
So I made a point of this to Ceausescu,
so that he should understand
577
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:39,280
that we did want
the people, on the one hand,
578
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:41,960
but that he should not exaggerate.
579
00:56:42,360 --> 00:56:45,080
The press should write better
about our relations.
580
00:56:45,320 --> 00:56:47,960
They always write
about what happens.
581
00:56:48,200 --> 00:56:54,240
The more journalists attend,
the more balanced coverage we get.
582
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:02,400
We have found a loanword for that,
that is: plurality!
583
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:05,680
Yes, but let them
write the truth!
584
00:57:07,680 --> 00:57:11,680
The ultimate truth, Mr. President,
we are in search of.
585
00:57:12,840 --> 00:57:16,320
German foreign minister Genscher
negotiated with Romanian president Ceausescu
586
00:57:16,560 --> 00:57:19,720
that the special tax
collected over the past months
587
00:57:19,960 --> 00:57:22,440
from Romanians willing to
leave the country should be abolished.
588
00:57:22,720 --> 00:57:25,440
Romania had called
the now abolished special claim
589
00:57:25,640 --> 00:57:27,880
from emigrants
tax on education.
590
00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:31,960
Germany officially announced:
Genscher has achieved this.
591
00:57:32,160 --> 00:57:33,800
It was not the case.
592
00:57:33,960 --> 00:57:36,360
It had been stipulated
in the agreement for a long time.
593
00:57:36,560 --> 00:57:39,880
The price was the increase
of the cost per capita.
594
00:57:57,760 --> 00:57:59,480
Do you want
to buy vegetables?
595
00:57:59,720 --> 00:58:02,240
No, but this
is worth looking at.
596
00:58:08,440 --> 00:58:11,960
Look, they have lamb gigot.
And lamb chops.
597
00:58:12,360 --> 00:58:14,120
But you have to be able
to cook it.
598
00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:17,360
42 Euros a kilo!!!
599
00:58:19,280 --> 00:58:20,480
Crazy!
600
00:58:22,400 --> 00:58:28,240
People came from Germany
saying my horse, my car etc.
601
00:58:29,400 --> 00:58:32,880
and did not say a word
about the rest:
602
00:58:33,600 --> 00:58:36,800
Watch out,
homesickness will be a problem.
603
00:58:37,520 --> 00:58:40,680
They will not welcome you
with open arms.
604
00:58:40,920 --> 00:58:44,000
You go there and you want something.
No one said that.
605
00:58:44,240 --> 00:58:46,600
Not that it would have stopped us.
606
00:58:46,800 --> 00:58:50,800
There was simply
no freedom to breathe!
607
00:58:52,760 --> 00:58:53,960
Black!
608
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:11,280
... a little shadow here...
609
00:59:19,320 --> 00:59:23,520
When you go to a concert
that you like, which touches you
610
00:59:24,040 --> 00:59:26,720
words are almost powerless.
611
00:59:27,520 --> 00:59:29,360
Only the feelings matter.
612
00:59:29,600 --> 00:59:31,760
It is stupid to say
It was overwhelming!
613
00:59:31,920 --> 00:59:33,960
Maybe it is an exaggeration.
614
00:59:39,520 --> 00:59:41,360
It is difficult to define.
615
00:59:43,360 --> 00:59:45,720
Yes, homeland is like music.
616
00:59:55,320 --> 00:59:59,760
We did not know that Germany
was paying for us.
617
01:00:00,120 --> 01:00:01,760
We were not aware of it.
618
01:00:01,960 --> 01:00:03,640
Maybe towards the end
619
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:10,800
But we did not make the difference
between the two types of payment.
620
01:00:11,160 --> 01:00:15,640
We thought that if we were paying,
that was all there was to it.
621
01:00:29,840 --> 01:00:33,520
I got into this passport business.
Let's call it a business.
622
01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:35,560
The Germans were so naïve,
623
01:00:35,800 --> 01:00:39,800
that if you entered their yard and said:
Listen, do you want to leave?
624
01:00:40,040 --> 01:00:42,680
they would look at you and
give you the money in 5 seconds.
625
01:00:42,920 --> 01:00:44,600
And so I started little by little
626
01:00:44,840 --> 01:00:48,920
and got to figures you would be
astonished to hear.
627
01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:51,320
What range of figures
are we talking about?
628
01:00:54,080 --> 01:00:56,000
You can imagine
I didn't keep track.
629
01:00:57,760 --> 01:01:00,840
But I would estimate
in the millions!
630
01:01:01,040 --> 01:01:06,520
Tens of millions of Deutschmarks,
around 7 billion Lei
631
01:01:06,920 --> 01:01:09,320
The German state
was paying an amount,
632
01:01:09,560 --> 01:01:11,600
and probably
the Romanian Communist Party,
633
01:01:11,800 --> 01:01:13,600
through its good leaders,
634
01:01:13,840 --> 01:01:17,320
was careful to round the sum.
635
01:01:17,560 --> 01:01:20,120
And let me tell you one more thing:
no member of the Securitate
636
01:01:20,360 --> 01:01:24,960
or the Police could work
without the backing of RCP,
637
01:01:25,240 --> 01:01:27,280
the Romanian Communist Party.
638
01:01:27,560 --> 01:01:29,040
And there,
639
01:01:29,280 --> 01:01:32,200
! pardon my French, which
might not go well with television !
640
01:01:32,440 --> 01:01:36,240
there were some cavemen saying:
More! Faster! Better!
641
01:01:44,520 --> 01:01:46,960
Things always revolved
around two people,
642
01:01:47,160 --> 01:01:51,160
whose names were repeatedly mentioned:
Bogdan and Capraru.
643
01:02:00,040 --> 01:02:02,400
This is Nicolae Capraru's house.
644
01:02:02,600 --> 01:02:05,920
Here was the springboard
for the Germans, in this house.
645
01:02:06,240 --> 01:02:08,080
It has an entrance in this street,
646
01:02:08,320 --> 01:02:10,920
where they would go in,
and an exit in the other street.
647
01:02:11,160 --> 01:02:16,400
Capraru worked with a Securitate
officer whom I knew very well.
648
01:02:16,680 --> 01:02:20,480
He told me to keep an eye on him,
to take care of him...
649
01:02:20,720 --> 01:02:23,320
How could I keep an eye on him?
The Germans were going in
650
01:02:23,520 --> 01:02:27,520
as if it had been Mecca.
20, 30, 50 of them every day. To pay.
651
01:02:28,120 --> 01:02:33,960
Then we rang. At the fence.
The house was a little farther away.
652
01:02:34,200 --> 01:02:39,080
And then this man came out,
walking slowly, grumpily.
653
01:02:41,320 --> 01:02:43,320
What did he say?
Ce vreti?
654
01:02:43,520 --> 01:02:44,600
What do you want?
655
01:02:45,040 --> 01:02:46,480
We want to go to Germany.
656
01:02:46,680 --> 01:02:47,720
Education?
657
01:02:48,400 --> 01:02:50,840
Philology: 14,000 DM.
658
01:02:52,200 --> 01:02:54,600
Polytechnics: 16,000 DM.
659
01:02:54,960 --> 01:02:57,320
Children? 10 years old.
They don't have to pay.
660
01:03:00,520 --> 01:03:03,840
For me it was 6,000 DM. For my husband,
who had a degree: 12,000 DM.
661
01:03:04,160 --> 01:03:08,160
So a total of 18,000 DM.
The daughter was still a minor.
662
01:03:08,360 --> 01:03:09,840
She did not have to pay.
663
01:03:10,080 --> 01:03:14,720
The kitchen table was
a greenish wooden table.
664
01:03:14,960 --> 01:03:20,720
And on it ! plenty of
one hundred DM notes.
665
01:03:21,320 --> 01:03:24,880
All blue.
In little stacks, but this high.
666
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:30,800
The recklessness of the payments
667
01:03:31,360 --> 01:03:35,000
and the lack of any guarantee
668
01:03:35,400 --> 01:03:38,480
You didn't even get a receipt
or anything!
669
01:03:38,680 --> 01:03:41,720
You just gave him 15,000 DM...
670
01:03:42,000 --> 01:03:44,720
and he lived
in an absolutely regular house
671
01:03:46,320 --> 01:03:49,360
I had also heard of people
who had already paid
672
01:03:49,560 --> 01:03:54,800
and had been waiting for their passport
for 10 years and it had not come
673
01:03:54,960 --> 01:03:58,560
I had no confidence in that system.
674
01:03:58,840 --> 01:04:02,560
I did not know about that;
it would only have increased my aversion.
675
01:04:02,840 --> 01:04:05,120
But that would not
have made a difference.
676
01:04:05,360 --> 01:04:07,560
I was not a key minister
or a major politician,
677
01:04:07,760 --> 01:04:10,120
but my personal aversion
would have been increased,
678
01:04:10,360 --> 01:04:13,880
thinking that we have to pay
a load of money to this Ceausescu,
679
01:04:14,080 --> 01:04:16,880
this unlikeable character,
so we can ransom people,
680
01:04:17,160 --> 01:04:20,960
and then these people there
have to pay extra money
681
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:22,840
so they can get out of there.
682
01:04:23,040 --> 01:04:27,280
That was just
an additional disgrace, to be honest.
683
01:04:27,560 --> 01:04:31,040
You should have seen the demand
And I wasn't the only one handling it all.
684
01:04:31,280 --> 01:04:33,080
I told you there were
several networks.
685
01:04:33,320 --> 01:04:37,320
And not only in Timisoara,
but also in Brasov, Arad, Bucharest, etc.
686
01:04:38,400 --> 01:04:42,000
I stepped into a church.
687
01:04:43,560 --> 01:04:44,920
The priest went:
688
01:04:45,120 --> 01:04:48,920
We thank the Lord
that there are 5,200 of us,
689
01:04:49,160 --> 01:04:51,800
we are ethnic Germans,
and so on...
690
01:04:52,160 --> 01:04:56,520
A month later: We thank the Lord
that there are 4.400 of us left,
691
01:04:56,760 --> 01:04:59,200
700 have gone away, etc.
692
01:04:59,600 --> 01:05:02,920
This happened once, twice
and then the third time
693
01:05:03,160 --> 01:05:05,320
the priest said:
Herr Bucur, when do I get to leave?"
694
01:05:05,520 --> 01:05:07,040
They knew me by now.
695
01:05:07,280 --> 01:05:10,400
Don't you think the people
who'd paid waited quietly.
696
01:05:11,640 --> 01:05:14,160
I talked to him and...
in the end, the priest left too.
697
01:05:14,400 --> 01:05:16,600
He just closed up shop and left.
698
01:05:40,320 --> 01:05:42,760
And then a call from Capraru!
699
01:05:43,960 --> 01:05:46,240
He had never called before.
700
01:05:46,600 --> 01:05:47,720
No, never!
701
01:05:47,920 --> 01:05:49,520
You can come now.
702
01:05:49,960 --> 01:05:56,280
So we went, buoyantly,
grinning from ear to ear
703
01:05:58,720 --> 01:06:04,920
We got there and then Capraru
was the first to come out.
704
01:06:05,120 --> 01:06:07,440
In handcuffs.
And then Bucur came out and said:
705
01:06:07,880 --> 01:06:12,720
So! You all want to go
to Germany, do you?
706
01:06:13,040 --> 01:06:18,680
I'll show you Germany,
he said in his offhand manner.
707
01:06:19,760 --> 01:06:22,560
And him... him we'll
lock up straight away.
708
01:06:22,800 --> 01:06:27,800
He meant Capraru.
Well, that sounded convincing.
709
01:06:28,280 --> 01:06:34,640
I caught Nicolae Capraru
from Timisoara red-handed,
710
01:06:34,920 --> 01:06:37,800
carrying 2,211,000 German marks.
711
01:06:38,240 --> 01:06:41,920
Of course I arrested him and took him
to the Police Department in Timis
712
01:06:42,240 --> 01:06:44,240
in order to investigate him.
713
01:06:44,680 --> 01:06:47,880
But no sooner did I set foot
in the Police HQ
714
01:06:48,280 --> 01:06:50,400
than I was called in for questioning.
715
01:06:51,160 --> 01:06:55,600
And my colleagues from the Securitate
told me to leave Capraru alone,
716
01:06:56,160 --> 01:06:59,160
to let him go on with his business
but to watch him.
717
01:07:01,120 --> 01:07:03,680
I could have lifted Capraru !
catching him with foreign currency !
718
01:07:03,840 --> 01:07:05,560
and opened a case file on him.
He would have gone to prison.
719
01:07:05,760 --> 01:07:07,760
Prosecution... all by the book.
720
01:07:08,040 --> 01:07:09,960
So that I shouldn't do that,
721
01:07:10,160 --> 01:07:12,160
they allowed me to confiscate some
money from him every now and again.
722
01:07:12,360 --> 01:07:14,920
And those were, so to speak,
the achievements of the Police.
723
01:07:15,560 --> 01:07:20,840
But the money came...
Let's say it got into my hands.
724
01:07:21,360 --> 01:07:24,760
I had to draw up minutes
and then hand it in.
725
01:07:25,040 --> 01:07:29,040
This money ended up
in the Romanian Foreign Trade Bank.
726
01:07:34,080 --> 01:07:36,960
I kindly ask you to go now,
people are starting to gather round.
727
01:07:37,200 --> 01:07:39,040
Three people have come out already.
728
01:07:41,320 --> 01:07:46,640
Of course it was a huge burden
for the Germans who wanted to leave.
729
01:07:47,040 --> 01:07:50,800
We did not want that.
And it affected our prices.
730
01:07:51,240 --> 01:07:56,160
Large sums were paid.
I know cases ! 42,000 Deutschmark...
731
01:07:56,400 --> 01:07:59,760
And cases of even larger amounts
have been reported.
732
01:07:59,960 --> 01:08:02,160
And we paid four,
five or seven thousand!
733
01:08:02,760 --> 01:08:07,880
Those who left for good had
the right to take a 70-kilo parcel.
734
01:08:08,640 --> 01:08:11,880
People who left as tourists
took their bags.
735
01:08:12,080 --> 01:08:14,280
They just carried a bag
and that was that.
736
01:08:16,080 --> 01:08:21,960
And then he [Bucur] came and showed us:
These are your passports.
737
01:08:24,960 --> 01:08:27,000
We got tourist passports.
738
01:08:27,440 --> 01:08:32,520
We knew that
we would lock up our house,
739
01:08:32,960 --> 01:08:36,800
our two-room apartment,
get into the car and drive off!
740
01:08:37,120 --> 01:08:39,360
And that it would be
a one-way road!
741
01:08:41,600 --> 01:08:47,840
Then, when we arrived at a transit camp
in Karlsruhe, we realized:
742
01:08:48,640 --> 01:08:55,200
Goodness, we've got debts of 30,000 DM
to repay to our friends!
743
01:08:55,520 --> 01:08:59,920
One of our friends had
even taken a loan from the bank.
744
01:09:00,360 --> 01:09:05,560
And so, for a year
we scraped money together and
745
01:09:05,800 --> 01:09:08,720
saved, saved, saved!
746
01:09:47,880 --> 01:09:51,000
On this land, Romanians, Germans,
747
01:09:51,240 --> 01:09:54,160
Hungarians and other nationalities
748
01:09:54,400 --> 01:09:57,840
have been living and
working together for centuries.
749
01:09:58,080 --> 01:10:00,680
It stands to reason
that everyone
750
01:10:00,880 --> 01:10:05,560
can learn in their
own language in schools,
751
01:10:05,920 --> 01:10:12,680
that they can organise cultural
activities in their own language.
752
01:10:13,000 --> 01:10:14,520
But also together!
753
01:10:27,040 --> 01:10:32,640
We knew that the Securitate...
754
01:10:34,800 --> 01:10:37,600
... was keeping an eye on us.
755
01:11:02,920 --> 01:11:06,920
I think the best way
to understand this
756
01:11:07,160 --> 01:11:11,560
is to read the poetry
published in German in those years.
757
01:11:12,120 --> 01:11:17,000
It is imbued with melancholy
and an apocalyptic atmosphere.
758
01:11:18,320 --> 01:11:20,480
And hopelessness.
759
01:11:26,920 --> 01:11:29,800
There was no meaning there.
The sun was up, above the stadium.
760
01:11:30,120 --> 01:11:32,880
There had been no meaning
there for a long time.
761
01:11:33,080 --> 01:11:35,280
Soon it would get cold again.
762
01:11:35,480 --> 01:11:37,880
And the next
loathsome winter would come,
763
01:11:38,080 --> 01:11:41,280
and the president's
next loathsome speeches
764
01:11:41,520 --> 01:11:45,600
and the next shortage,
the next weeks without milk,
765
01:11:45,840 --> 01:11:47,600
the next days without bread,
766
01:11:47,840 --> 01:11:51,520
the evenings without electricity,
the next media rubbish,
767
01:11:51,760 --> 01:11:57,400
the next ID check, the next humiliation
and the one after that.
768
01:11:58,160 --> 01:11:59,680
It was enough.
769
01:11:59,880 --> 01:12:02,400
Stirner looked over the stadium.
770
01:12:02,760 --> 01:12:07,880
Behind it was the gloomy steaming
industry, the silent country.
771
01:12:08,120 --> 01:12:12,480
He stood up, went to the cupboard,
placed the typewriter on the table,
772
01:12:12,680 --> 01:12:16,680
took the cover off,
inserted two sheets of paper into it,
773
01:12:17,040 --> 01:12:20,600
carbon-paper in-between,
and started to type:
774
01:12:20,760 --> 01:12:22,200
To the passport office.
775
01:12:22,520 --> 01:12:26,880
We hereby apply
for permanent emigration.
776
01:12:27,440 --> 01:12:30,000
Our reasons are...
777
01:12:47,440 --> 01:12:52,760
Many people risked a lot
by applying for emigration.
778
01:12:52,960 --> 01:12:59,080
By applying for emigration,
you became an enemy of the people.
779
01:12:59,880 --> 01:13:05,200
There was no official form
by which you could apply.
780
01:13:06,080 --> 01:13:07,920
There were hand-written models;
781
01:13:08,120 --> 01:13:13,920
you knew what the application should
contain from those who had applied before.
782
01:13:14,600 --> 01:13:18,360
Then one learned
from clerks, typists -
783
01:13:18,600 --> 01:13:21,000
who had secretly typed
784
01:13:21,400 --> 01:13:26,200
- what this application
that people filled in should contain,
785
01:13:26,520 --> 01:13:30,280
and these forms circulated
on the black market.
786
01:13:33,080 --> 01:13:36,200
I applied for emigration in 1986.
787
01:13:36,600 --> 01:13:41,920
Because I couldn't see any possibility
of living in this country anymore.
788
01:13:42,960 --> 01:13:46,360
We knew, for example, that we,
German-speaking writers,
789
01:13:46,600 --> 01:13:50,040
would not be able to live
in this country anymore.
790
01:14:08,600 --> 01:14:14,080
This railway station will stay in the
memory of all the Germans in Banat,
791
01:14:14,360 --> 01:14:18,160
or of those who have emigrated.
792
01:14:18,400 --> 01:14:20,440
The night that they spent here
was the night
793
01:14:20,600 --> 01:14:25,080
when they said goodbye
to their relatives,
794
01:14:26,640 --> 01:14:31,160
and they always had the feeling
that it was goodbye forever,
795
01:14:31,400 --> 01:14:34,280
as one didn't know back then
796
01:14:34,520 --> 01:14:37,960
whether one would ever return
to this country.
797
01:14:47,240 --> 01:14:50,560
Then everything was programmed
according to a certain timetable.
798
01:14:50,760 --> 01:14:53,200
People had to be there
before midnight.
799
01:14:53,840 --> 01:14:56,360
The train left in the morning
around 5.
800
01:14:56,760 --> 01:15:00,360
Then the relatives were
all thrown out of the waiting room
801
01:15:00,600 --> 01:15:04,320
and only the person who was leaving
was allowed to stay.
802
01:15:04,560 --> 01:15:08,640
Then they were lined up here
on the platform,
803
01:15:09,680 --> 01:15:15,400
guarded by soldiers with
machine guns and sometimes with dogs.
804
01:15:16,240 --> 01:15:22,240
Then you took your suitcase
after having gone through customs.
805
01:15:22,440 --> 01:15:24,080
Then you got on the train.
806
01:15:24,320 --> 01:15:27,840
In a file and under command,
807
01:15:28,120 --> 01:15:31,720
... like convicts.
808
01:15:32,840 --> 01:15:39,960
They made people feel that
they were betraying their fatherland.
809
01:15:46,160 --> 01:15:51,280
These are emotional moments
that keep coming to your mind.
810
01:15:51,520 --> 01:15:55,920
It was actually
the saddest moment of the emigration,
811
01:15:56,160 --> 01:15:59,960
because you knew
it was the end.
812
01:16:00,240 --> 01:16:02,120
Not the beginning!
813
01:16:09,600 --> 01:16:14,640
We left from the
Curtici border crossing.
814
01:16:14,960 --> 01:16:19,720
With a heavy heart, having left
half of our life back there.
815
01:16:25,760 --> 01:16:27,520
It was always so uncertain
816
01:16:27,760 --> 01:16:31,840
you didn't know when
you would see each other again.
817
01:16:32,160 --> 01:16:36,000
We were tired and heading
for an uncertain future.
818
01:16:36,360 --> 01:16:40,960
You also worried about
the family that stayed behind.
819
01:16:41,920 --> 01:16:43,960
It was not easy.
820
01:16:46,280 --> 01:16:48,600
The bus! The bus is coming!
821
01:16:57,560 --> 01:17:00,440
We came to the country
of our ancestors.
822
01:17:00,680 --> 01:17:04,080
We definitely had that feeling.
We were prepared for that.
823
01:17:04,320 --> 01:17:08,480
We had always known that,
we had always carried that within us.
824
01:17:08,720 --> 01:17:12,560
Namely that
we had always been Germans.
825
01:17:16,280 --> 01:17:18,920
We came from the only
Eastern Bloc country
826
01:17:19,120 --> 01:17:22,240
in which Germans had had
the freedom to speak their language.
827
01:17:22,440 --> 01:17:26,160
We were very fortunate,
we must say!
828
01:17:26,400 --> 01:17:30,400
This even included being able to take
a German Abitur in Romania,
829
01:17:30,720 --> 01:17:34,320
so we didn't have
any language problems.
830
01:17:34,800 --> 01:17:38,160
This was
a very great advantage for us!
831
01:17:59,880 --> 01:18:02,040
The adaptation was difficult
832
01:18:02,280 --> 01:18:06,360
because things here were
quite different from a dictatorship.
833
01:18:07,280 --> 01:18:12,280
But we were so positive
834
01:18:12,760 --> 01:18:17,320
and only wished to find a job
835
01:18:17,920 --> 01:18:23,400
and integrate more or less
into the new environment.
836
01:18:23,920 --> 01:18:29,040
We managed to do that
quite fast and well.
837
01:18:30,080 --> 01:18:35,320
And we were grateful for that.
838
01:18:39,840 --> 01:18:44,600
When the Soviet Union broke off
relations with the West at the end of 1983,
839
01:18:45,720 --> 01:18:52,240
all the arrangements for
visits to Germany were cancelled.
840
01:18:52,560 --> 01:18:55,040
Whether it was Honecker,
who had already been invited,
841
01:18:55,280 --> 01:18:57,720
or the Polish president,
whatever his name was,
842
01:18:57,920 --> 01:19:00,360
they all cancelled, under
pressure from the Soviet Union.
843
01:19:00,600 --> 01:19:05,160
Only one came. Ceausescu !
whom we actually wanted the least.
844
01:19:05,520 --> 01:19:06,960
But he came!
845
01:19:17,960 --> 01:19:23,720
Kohl said: If we manage to get
that hardliner, Ceausescu, to relent,
846
01:19:24,640 --> 01:19:29,360
then the last hardliner
Honecker,
847
01:19:30,320 --> 01:19:32,920
in whose behaviour
we are very interested,
848
01:19:33,280 --> 01:19:35,960
will not be able to resist.
849
01:19:36,160 --> 01:19:39,480
We would also make
humanitarian improvements.
850
01:19:57,040 --> 01:20:01,800
This man did not accept
to be dependent.
851
01:20:02,280 --> 01:20:06,160
That is,
if he lacked funds,
852
01:20:07,080 --> 01:20:10,680
he would not settle matters
at his own expense,
853
01:20:11,240 --> 01:20:15,320
but at the expense of his people.
854
01:20:15,520 --> 01:20:20,360
Just look at his decision to repay
all the external debt of the state:
855
01:20:20,720 --> 01:20:24,760
he let his people live
in such poverty!
856
01:20:25,240 --> 01:20:30,960
What people endured in Romania
back then was almost unbearable.
857
01:20:31,480 --> 01:20:34,280
This man was utterly ruthless.
858
01:20:34,720 --> 01:20:40,040
Romania has no external debt left,
859
01:20:40,560 --> 01:20:45,120
it no longer pays tribute to anyone
and is truly independent,
860
01:20:45,480 --> 01:20:48,200
both economically and politically!
861
01:20:53,520 --> 01:20:57,520
Oddly enough, it wasn't just us,
but the entire population
862
01:20:57,880 --> 01:21:01,880
who were convinced
that it could not go on like this.
863
01:21:02,120 --> 01:21:06,120
On the other hand, however,
people lived with the fear
864
01:21:06,400 --> 01:21:09,520
that this regime would last forever.
865
01:21:10,520 --> 01:21:12,840
So this was a contradiction in itself:
866
01:21:13,040 --> 01:21:18,760
they saw the end but they were
also afraid that it wouldn't come.
867
01:21:19,960 --> 01:21:23,520
And that it would get even worse.
868
01:21:23,760 --> 01:21:27,240
The whole country
suffered from a psychosis of fear
869
01:21:27,480 --> 01:21:29,760
and despair, of bitterness.
870
01:21:30,040 --> 01:21:32,080
There was an apocalyptic atmosphere!
871
01:22:08,520 --> 01:22:12,320
He terminated our agreement
on 4 December 1989
872
01:22:12,560 --> 01:22:17,120
and fell from power
on 20-22 December.
873
01:22:19,000 --> 01:22:23,360
Dear viewers, Nicolae Ceausescu
and Elena Ceausescu
874
01:22:23,560 --> 01:22:26,400
have been detained by groups
of citizens and soldiers
875
01:22:26,640 --> 01:22:29,200
while trying to flee abroad.
876
01:22:47,760 --> 01:22:49,800
This one isn't working!
877
01:23:05,520 --> 01:23:07,720
This one must be tuned first,
878
01:23:07,920 --> 01:23:11,040
and then the sound
will be beautiful and pure!
879
01:23:11,280 --> 01:23:13,440
We'll do it next time!
880
01:24:19,400 --> 01:24:21,960
Andronic! Last action...
881
01:24:28,160 --> 01:24:33,760
We had no winner,
it was an equal result.
882
01:24:35,680 --> 01:24:39,200
Everybody lost and everybody gained.
It was a win-win situation.
883
01:24:40,840 --> 01:24:43,520
That's the most important point.
884
01:24:44,440 --> 01:24:49,560
If yourself believe you are the winner,
you shouldn't show it.
885
01:24:50,960 --> 01:24:55,240
It was first of all
a humanitarian question.
886
01:24:55,840 --> 01:24:59,960
From our point of view.
From yours and from ours.
887
01:25:01,920 --> 01:25:05,240
No, it was business.
No, it was business!
888
01:25:06,320 --> 01:25:09,520
We didn't consider it
business because it...
889
01:25:09,880 --> 01:25:12,400
... it was a business...
890
01:25:13,120 --> 01:25:14,880
Lost?
Lost!
891
01:25:15,280 --> 01:25:19,200
Loss of people, indeed,
but gain of money.
892
01:25:19,880 --> 01:25:22,440
A gain of money, lots of it...
893
01:25:23,720 --> 01:25:29,920
I agree it was a great loss
for Romania and a gain for Germany.
894
01:25:30,560 --> 01:25:34,680
But mostly
it was a gain for liberty.
895
01:25:35,080 --> 01:25:36,880
That's right!
And humanity.
896
01:25:37,080 --> 01:25:39,480
But the liberty cost
you cannot evaluate.
897
01:25:40,160 --> 01:25:44,480
Yeah, we are thinking
in the field of human rights...
898
01:25:53,160 --> 01:25:55,680
Why did it have to happen this way?
899
01:25:55,920 --> 01:25:59,080
Why did fate deal us this card?
900
01:25:59,360 --> 01:26:02,520
Why did we have to
walk this hard road?
901
01:26:08,960 --> 01:26:11,800
The operation was profitable
for the Federal Republic,
902
01:26:12,040 --> 01:26:13,920
not only for the people in question.
903
01:26:14,120 --> 01:26:16,560
I mean, we won back
our fellow countrymen.
904
01:26:16,760 --> 01:26:19,440
Their knowledge, their expertise,
905
01:26:19,680 --> 01:26:24,920
their cultural input ! we won it
all back, to ourselves, so to speak.
906
01:26:28,440 --> 01:26:32,720
I feel very good here.
I particularly feel very good in Bavaria!
907
01:26:34,760 --> 01:26:38,040
I am happy with my life as it is!
908
01:26:41,240 --> 01:26:45,160
As Romans used to say: veni, vidi,
and then we'll see what happens!
909
01:26:45,360 --> 01:26:48,600
And now we'll see what happens
in Transylvania, right?
910
01:26:51,400 --> 01:26:54,680
I bow to Germany! All my respect!
911
01:26:54,920 --> 01:26:57,920
If someone else, other than Bucur,
maybe a second Bucur,
912
01:26:58,120 --> 01:27:00,600
had asked for one more payment,
rest assured that the Germans
913
01:27:01,040 --> 01:27:05,360
would have paid ! only to be able
to take home their own people.
914
01:27:06,160 --> 01:27:10,560
The reunification of the nation:
you'll never see Romanians do that!
915
01:27:12,440 --> 01:27:16,160
For all its brutal nature,
it all went so smoothly!
916
01:27:16,400 --> 01:27:19,400
We were able to help
over 300,000 people.
917
01:27:19,760 --> 01:27:21,440
What more could one wish for?
918
01:27:21,800 --> 01:27:25,040
One can only say:
Thank You, dear God!
919
01:28:05,800 --> 01:28:09,560
Shall I hold this glass now?
No. Just drink a bit.
920
01:28:13,840 --> 01:28:16,920
See how everything
is ruined there!
921
01:28:19,720 --> 01:28:22,120
And how many children
are there in this village?
922
01:28:23,240 --> 01:28:26,640
Lots! - How many?
20, 30, 50?
923
01:28:28,120 --> 01:28:31,880
... and he says to my husband:
Why did you marry a German?
924
01:28:32,680 --> 01:28:35,480
And how do you get along
with the Germans?
925
01:28:37,200 --> 01:28:41,400
Shall I tell you something...?
No. Just shut up.
75770
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