Carmen Paul - Horse´s Hoof and Heaven

What an earth was going on? I did not know either. I waited and waited to be moved on along with the others, even getting up to gather my luggage together, but no-one was paying the slightest bit of attention to me. Nobody said anything, nobody even glanced at me, as if I was invisible. The coach had become completely empty by now. I opened the window, stuck my head out, and watched all the commotion on the platform from there.

Things started to happen outside: two men rolled a red carpet out, a band took their positions on the platform, their uniform being that of the National People’s Army, and a small group of Asians arrived. One of the men advanced two steps forward from the four officials who were accompanying him and was presented with a bouquet of flowers by two female officials as a parting gift. They then boarded my coach. I was stupefied by now. Why on earth was I allowed to stay put while all the other passengers were made to move elsewhere on the train?

The Asians took their seats on the other side of the gangway, in silence. I observed them, they simply did not seem to register that I was there at all. The train then set off once again.

The man who accepted the bunch of flowers now was now looking in my direction. Then he spoke in his own language to the others, resulting in all of them nervously casting their gaze at me! The man who spoke was obviously in charge, and he now came over to me, raising his hand in order to reassure me. He smiled at me, bowed lightly, and then offered his hand to me introducing himself.

His name was simply impossible to pronounce; however, what he then said in soft tones in virtually perfect German was very interesting. He was very pleased once I told him that I worked in agriculture at a modern milking parlour. Apparently, I was speaking with one of the most highest ranking ministers for agriculture in North Korea!

He proceeded to tell me was quite horrifying things which I had never heard before. Daily routine in agriculture in North Korea was run with military-like precision, rank and all; but not the typical eight hour shifts we were accustomed to in communist East Germany! In North Korea they worked ten to twelve hours every single day. And with such an efficient farming paradise they simply did not know what to do with all the produce. It did not go to the workers – they went hungry, with some of them even starving to death.

I told him about my own life: that I had just accepted Jesus Christ into my life, the Lord now being my constant spiritual companion. He took my hand, stroked it, and asked me quietly “then please pray for our country” (this I did with several other friends regularly after this). Moreover he told me that on returning to his country he may well be imprisoned, if one of his officials belonging to the state police inform the regime that we were speaking to each other like this; that would be his fate for once and for all.

Absolutely appalled at all what I had heard from him I then asked him why the population in North Korea have not risen up against the government. He then described the hierarchy in North Korea being intolerant of all protest, ruthlessly stamping out all opposition; it sounded like the previous Nazi regime which I’d had drummed into me by the school teachers in East Germany.

Time flew by on that journey to Rostock. The chief official gave me as a present, several memorabilia from him and his own country, among them a picture book depicting Pyongyang and life there in all its detail, “which I could show my family and children”. I have had this book until recently, which I have often showed to my daughter; she loves the cute illustrations in it. Later I gave this to my mother as a present. On arrival in Rostock the senior ranking official took me warmly by the arm and whispered in my ear “pray for our country, won’t you”.

I gave it a lot of thought about why he pleaded with me to do so; I could only arrive at the conclusion that he and his family were secret followers of Jesus, maybe having already been converted before the communist era started in North Korea, having retained the most important principles from his faith then. I still remember to this day this encounter with this chief official, thereby gaining deep respect and solidarity with his people.

An article from the Stern magazine

Once again, I received mail from West Germany. My pen pal sent me an article this time from the Stern magazine. It depicted in black and white that the so-called ‘solidarity money’ sent from East Germany as a ‘donation from the people’ to the Russians, was used for the manufacture of weapons employed for the occupation of the Russian troops in Afghanistan.

This was shocking news for me. It became apparent that those ‘unsuspecting citizens of East Germany’ would probably be the only ones who did not actually realise this. Although we were able to receive the TV channels from West Germany where I lived; actual facts like this were systematically concealed from us. Now I had the entire picture, and I decided not to pay one single penny farthing more as donation to the solidarity fund for Russia. Whenever we received the year-end bonus from our pay packets, we were given the opportunity of to make a ‘voluntary’ contribution to as a ‘gesture of solidarity’ to those in Russia.

Today was the day the solidarity collection would be taken. I went along to the meeting with this article in my handbag, and the local party secretary gave us a speech covering all of the political issues governing this fund, but of course not where the funds would end up. So, I got up and asked him exactly where our donations would be used, which we were about to pay into this fund.

The party secretary hesitated and stalled, and once I judged that he’d beaten about the bush enough I took the offending article out of my handbag and slammed it down on the table, declaring “If he would deign to read this article, then he’d be all the wiser, and tell us the truth for once”. There ensued a deathly hush in the room; one could literally hear a pin drop.

A ‘courtesy visit’ by the Secret State Police (known as the Stasi )

The following day it came as no surprise to me that a Stasi official knocked on my door. I’m not really the nervous or shy type of person when it comes to dealing with strangers, but this Stasi officer really did instil the fear of death into me, meaning exactly was he was saying as he paced back and forth in my lounge. I felt really quite physically sick as he started to comb through my cupboards and drawers – they were full of items sent to me from West Germany, all arranged so that the smell of the soap stored there didn’t infuse itself into the chocolate.

Indeed this was rather inept timing as the cupboard was full of bars of chocolate, sent to me from West Germany in generous quantities by my uncle, my pen pals, Uwe and Otrud, as well as from Pastor Becker living in Rhine Valley. I certainly had the intention of distributing these to my other friends locally, but I just hadn’t got round to it at that point in time; no-one in East Germany paid any attention to the sell by dates that were on the wrappers.

It was common knowledge that the Stasi officials were forbidden to receive or keep any product from West Germany; this served to make me even more nervous as he rummaged through the cupboard full of these goodies. I didn’t mind him glaring at the cans of pineapple and packet soups, my mind was fixated on what this officer would discover on looking at the bottom of that cupboard – I just prayed he would turn wouldn’t open that particular drawer. His grunts of disapproval already had left me in no doubt at all that he was less than amused on encountering all these products from the West. He made it plain to me “we have our ways and means of silencing young ladies like you”.