MFH (My Favorite Husband) and I had an early morning flight the day we left Berlin, Germany, for our return trip home.

When you fly out of Germany to the United States, you have to go through two different security clearances.  The first one is the Germany/EU security and the second is TSA security.  Yes~they have TSA in Germany if you want to go the Unites States.

*I will just say here that the German TSA is much more efficient AND thorough AND kind than if/when you go through TSA in the States.*

After we went through the two security checks, we had a loooong time to sit in a waiting area in the Berlin airport.

You know me, I can’t just SIT there!  Nope.  There was this cute “older” woman sitting next to me.  I hesitate to say “older” because in spirit, she was young.  She had gone through TSA right before me.  She had spoken good, un-accented English and also German.  I was curious…and nosy.

After a little bit of just sitting there, I started chatting with her. I have no idea how we got started talking but once we got going, we talked like old friends.  She was an amazing lady!

She told me she had arrived in Germany 51 years ago to teach school to US gov’t workers children.  She was single when she arrived in Germany.  Due to her job, she had security clearance to cross over into East and West Germany without any trouble.

Early on, she met a nice German man.  They fell in love and were married.  He did not have the security clearance she had.  That made things a little tricky for them if they needed to travel.

See, to travel back then, the way the roads were, you had to cross back and forth between the East and West sides of Germany.  Many people simply couldn’t travel because of this.  They had figured out a way to make it work.  He would fly to their destination and she would drive.  That way they would have transportation wherever it was they had decided to go.

Aside from one scary mishap where she was detained for quite a while by the Russians, this worked very well.  *Too long of a story to put here. Suffice it to say, it was pretty scary!*

During her years living in Germany, she and her husband lived one block away from the Berlin Wall.  That’s just how it worked out.  They didn’t pick the place because it was close to the Wall.  The Wall was a part of the fabric of their lives.

Like I mentioned, she taught school.  Her husband was a Guard for West Berlin on the Berlin Wall.  That was his job.  I guess I was surprised to hear that.  I mean, people ask you your occupation and you reply, I’m a guard for West Berlin at the Berlin Wall?  Is that something you want to admit??????

One of the stories she told me, I’ll share with you today:

Her husband was on a night shift at the Wall.  She heard the sirens go off and she thought, “Uh-Oh!”  Soon there was the sound of a LOT of gunfire.  The shooting went on for quite a while and then it finally quieted down and the sirens were shut off.

When her husband came home from work, she asked him, “What happened at the Wall?”

This is what he told her:

Two families from East Berlin got together.  They had a tractor and in secret the men worked on putting armor around the tractor.  That night, the men took their entire families and put them inside the armored tractor and together they drove through (literally!) the Berlin Wall!

The orders for the Wall Guards on the East side were, “Shoot to kill.”

The orders for the Wall Guards on the West side were, “Do not interfere until/if they make it completely to the West.”

She asked him, “Did they make it!?!”

He was so excited because not only did both family make it but no one was even injured!

He said the hardest part of his job was watching desperate people make run for freedom to get shot down and there wasn’t anything he could do.  Even if they got shot, he wasn’t allowed to go help.  He had to stand there and watch them die.

What an awful job!  I couldn’t do it!

Her husband has since passed. Seeing as she has family in the States (Ohio) she splits her time between Ohio and Germany.

The woman is about 73 years old.  She has seen a lot on those 73 years but has a fabulous spark!  A zest for life!  I was super impressed with her and think back on her fondly.

I wish her all the best.