Text 3185, 66 rader
Skriven 2010-01-15 13:54:18 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
   Kommentar till text 3178 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: Travel in Europe
========================
Michiel van der Vlist wrote to Robert Bashe on Friday January 15 2010 at 10:51:

MV>>> In the 60ties I travelled to Czecko Slovakia (sp?) several times by
MV>>> car. Both before and after the '68 Russian intervention. Once I rode
MV>>> uo to the Polish border with a couple of friends. There were many
MV>>> small roads where the only thing stopping us from crossing the
MV>>> border was a sign. We actually walked across and marked our presence
MV>>> in the snow. ;-)

RB>> You're lucky you didn't get shot.

MV> Shot by whom? There was no one in sight. We were in the middle of a
MV> forest. That border was not guarded.

...that you know about. You certainly do like to assume a lot.

RB>> If that had been the East German border you certainly would have
RB>> been.

MV> The border between East Germany and Poland was nto the same as the
MV> border between East and West Germany. Do not measures everything with
MV> the yard stick of the Berlin wall.

Michiel, _you_ may never have seen the border between east and west Germany,
but I most definitely have - not only in Berlin - and I say right here and now
that you have no idea whatever about it. You generalize and try to play
everything down, whereas others have seen the reality with their own eyes.

MV>>> The iron curtain was hard to cross, but once one was past, one could
MV>>> just walk to Moscow I think.

RB>> As I say, that was not my impression. The controls were at least as
RB>> strict from one Iron Curtain country to the next - and much stricter
RB>> than in the West - as those at the border from East to West.

MV> Not my experience. Maybe you crossed at a time when there had been an
MV> incident and security was temporarely raised.

No. The summer of 1966 was no different from any other time. If you experienced
anything else, I can only assume you may have done that at a much earlier time,
when the east-west differences and animosities were not yet as great as later.
Other possibilities are mentioned below.

RB>> But I have to admit that my experience is limited. Except for that
RB>> trip in the summer of 1967, I only took several car trips to East
RB>> Germany in 1970-71, one of them private (to Meissen) - no other
RB>> experience behind the Iron Curtain.

MV> We took a trip to Poland by train. Crossing the Iron curtain was
MV> hairy. Crossing from East Germany into Poland was not much different
MV> from crossing from the Netherlands into West Germany.

You mention no date. Assuming that really were true - it definitely was NOT in
the late 1960s and early 1970s - I would assume that was during a period where
the east Germans and Poland were trying to improve their "brotherly" relations.
It's also possible that the east German-Polish border - not being anywhere
close to the west - was not as strictly guarded as those bordering the west or
those to eastern European countries bordering the west. East Germans going to
Poland would have no chance to escape to the west, whereas those going to
Hungaria or Czachoslovakia would have - that would have explained the
differences I saw, and possibly the lax border controls you experienced.

Cheers, Bob

--- GoldED+/W32 1.1.5-0613
 * Origin: Jabberwocky System - 02363-56073 ISDN/V34 (2:2448/44)