Foreign Aid Part II - Perils of the Berlin Wall

Sorry for leaving you hanging, but here we go. This is about the about the perilous train journey from Copenhagen to West Berlin.
Lise did it - the candour of youth and fearlessness! We, mum and I, after mum had surreptitiously warmed to the idea of this girl coming to visit, had arranged for Gisela to meet with Lise at Ostbahnhof.
As described in the last epistle, transit passengers had to disembark the long distance train and board the small feeder on the other side of the platform.
The very curious fact, to say the least, was that East Berliners and East Germans were allowed onto that platform since the train from Warnemuende  had several carriages appended to it specifically for East German travellers from the Rostock area going to Berlin.
We had sent pictures of Lise in the months before and there was no problem the two of them finding each other. Mum maintained it was purely to ensure the girl would get safely onto the feeder to West Berlin.

It was a rather brief meeting, the salient point being that contact had been established and they would recognise each other in the future.
I picked up Lise at Zoo (that's what Berliners called the Station - being rather lazy they would never ever say: "Berlin Zoologischer Garten") and took her home on the underground to meet mum.
Being very much in puppy love and all that I didn't notice anything but the girl. Upon meeting Lisa, mum's attitude was perhaps somewhat cold, but it went right over my head.
All mum had in mind, as I found out later, was to use Lise as a mule to ferry 'contraband' to Gisela.
The poor girl was hardly at our place for a few days when mum dispatched her, laden down with two very large carry bags, to East Berlin to deliver the first load of toilet paper and washing powder.

East Berlin U-Bahn network post 1961

Today's U-Bahn network in Berlin

A slight digress at this point. Once the wall went up, underground train services (what is called the U-Bahn in Berlin) were first disrupted and then re-arranged. All lines running in East Berlin were separated from the ones running in West Berlin. Small problem, though! The U 5, the north - south line, run right through the middle of East Berlin. Also, the underground station called 'Berlin Mitte', which was and is an interchange point between two underground lines, were located in the smack centre of East Berlin.
Not really a problem for the crafty Stasi - they simply shut off all underground stations on the U5 that were located in the East, they became 'Ghost Stations', and trains would rattle through them at full speed.
The only exception being Friedrichstrasse. The train would stop there and allow passengers to disembark to enter East Berlin IF they had the right credentials, i.e. be West Germans or foreign nationals!
Berlin Mitte was the same thing, it was only open in certain parts allowing West Berliners to switch from the north-south line to the east-west line.
The deliveries kept being dispatched, seeing that Lise was on holidays and so was Gisela. Both her first husband and her were teachers, so they had time off over Christmas. Gisela and her husband tried very hard to compensate the poor innocent girl for her troubles. Gisela's then husband would meet her in the late afternoon, at the Friedrichstrasse border crossing, carry her bags and take her to the opera, a concert or a play. East Germany, in those days, was very big on cultural activities and spent millions on putting up plays, operas and operettas. Admission was very inexpensive and the performances were exceptional. West Germans would travel to West Berlin to catch shows in East Berlin.
I am not sure that a 16 year old girl really appreciated being taken to a performance of  Berthold Brecht's 'The Three Penny Opera', but she seemed to 'suffer' it with dignity.

The bottom line of it all was that Gisela got her fancy washing powder, toilet paper and lovely scented soaps, Lise had quite some adventures crossing the border (like being strip searched on one occasion - I think the border guards just fancied getting a rather lovely girl down to nothing) and being asked repetitive questions, they had records and knew how many times she had crossed the 'border', about her intentions and motives.

The brave girl soldiered on and delivered all the necessary supplies for the next six months! After all, she was going to come back for the summer holidays and would stay longer than just a couple of weeks.
That way, Gisela's supplies of 'bum caressing' toilet paper and fragrant washing powder were assured for the time being.