Escape from East Berlin
This is the tale of two families from Berlin, Germany. In August of 1961, the East German Army laid down 30 miles of barbed wire throughout Berlin to separate East from West. Families became divided, and the wall eventually became a high concrete barrier. In November 1961, 17-year-old Stefan Dietrich attempts to swim across Humboldt Harbor to visit friends in West Berlin. The trapos, transit police, shoot him to death in the water.
Stefan’s tragic death changes his twelve-year-old sister, Marta. She overhears her cousin discussing a bold plan to take a train car of passengers to escape East Berlin through the ghost stations. Marta volunteers to pass coded messages from East to West. The Dietrich family has now been targeted by the Stasi police. The man assigned to prove the allegations against the Dietrichs is Lothar Muller, an agent of the Stasi. He vows to bring down the Dietrich family.
The story then skips ahead to January 1989. Kurt Muller and his brother Franz are living in East Berlin while their parents have been exiled to West Berlin. Franz has joined the grepo, the East German police. But Kurt misses his parents and cannot condone the injustice of the Wall. He dreams of escaping to the West. As the book reaches its climax, the tearing down of the wall in 1989, readers finally see the threads that connect both families.
Well-written with distinct characters, good dialogue, and continuous pacing of the action. At times I became a little confused about which decade I was reading, but the chapter subheadings helped to clarify. Definitely recommended.
