CHAPTER ONE

I think it comes from keeping everything bottled up inside and never opening your mouth…

Page 4: Real “fellow travelers.” The word emphasized here is Mitläufer.

Immediately after the Second World War, it came to describe those who never exercised power in Nazi Germany but who passively supported the regime and turned a blind eye to its atrocities. In the German Democratic Republic (GDR), it was similarly used to characterize passive supporters of the regime.

Page 5: My father … taught physical education at the vocational school. The GDR organized its system of education around “general polytechnical schools,” encompassing ten grades and equipping graduates with the equivalent of an American high-school education. Most students in the GDR completed the polytechnical school before moving into an apprenticeship in the line of work in which they would make their career. Klara indicates that her father worked at a Berufsschule, a “vocational school” that students might enter upon graduation from a polytechnical school for additional years of training tied to an apprenticeship (Lehrstelle) in a particular trade. Students who followed this track could also hope to take the Abitur (the comprehensive examinations taken at the end of one's secondary education, akin to A-levels in England, that certify competence in several subject areas and that are required for entrance to university) at the conclusion of the Berufsschule. Students might thereby obtain certification in a particular trade as well as verification of their readiness to pursue higher technical or university study.

Page 5: We were all in the Pioneers. The Pioneer organization was a state-sponsored youth group for those between the ages of six and thirteen. It consisted of two tiers, the Jungpioniere (Young Pioneers) for children in grades one to three and the Thälmann-pioniere (Thäl-mann Pioneers) for grades four through seven. It sought to structure the leisure activities of these young people in order to prepare them for membership in the ruling party and to shape them into proper citizens of the socialist state.