What an opportunity. I immediately went to the camp, found Ute and Agnes and discussed a picnic plan. The site was an area near the breached Iron Curtain. They had given up on escape but that now seemed a possibility again.
Early in the morning on the day of the picnic I went to the car rental agency. The agent handed over keys for a rickety-looking Lada, the gear shift loose. I wondered whether we would break down along the way. Then I picked up Ute, Agnes and Zsolt. The picnic was not scheduled until later in the afternoon. We arranged to arrive early, ahead of the organizers. We needed time to explore the back roads near the site where we hoped to find a remote, patrol-free crossing where the Iron Curtain used to be.
We followed the directions sent by the picnic organizers. We found ourselves in a field near the border but did not know where the border actually lay. No signs marked anything. We stood, surrounded by fields bisected here and there by dusty country lanes. As we explored further, hoping to find a sign post, we noticed occasional cars parked haphazardly along the roads or in fields, all of the cars, two-stroke engine East German Trabants. Eventually we found an abandoned guard tower. A cluster of people stood nearby. They spoke German. Ute, Agnes and Zsolt chatted with them.
“They’re looking for the border,” Zsolt told me.
“Maybe we’ll see it from the top,” I replied, pointing at the guard tower. Zsolt and I climbed the tower. From the top we spied people in small groups. East Germans, we thought. They wandered up and down lanes for miles around. We could also now see dozens and dozens of parked cars scattered through fields.
Hours passed. No one that we met had found a route to Austria. Now early afternoon, Zsolt and I went to register for the picnic and the bus ride over the border. I pulled out my press accreditation. The woman at the registration table looked at it.
“The Guardian — a wonderful paper,” she said. She asked how long I’d been in Hungary and had a few other questions. Then she handed me a flimsy square of paper stamped with the word sajto, which means “press.”
“Will they check passports at the border?” I asked.
“No, this is all you need,” she said and pointed at the stamped paper. “No other documentation is required for the trip.”
I stepped away from the table. My heart thumped. My throat was dry. I knew that I needed to take two of those passes for Ute and Agnes.
I stood in the grass near the table and watched as another person registered. The woman in charge seemed distracted, but I could not bring myself to take the passes. Minutes ticked away. Then someone else registered. The third time I moved forward. The press passes stood stacked in a pile near the edge of the table. While the woman dealt with someone else, I took two and walked away. I felt sure that someone would notice, chase after me and take them back. No one did. I showed Zsolt the passes. He broke out in a grin.
We found Ute and Agnes and gave them the papers. They seemed happy, though guarded. I think they had already experienced too many setbacks to feel hopeful. We asked them to follow us onto the bus but not say anything. German chatter might attract suspicion. We boarded early. More people arrived. I watched anxiously as the bus filled, worried that there would not be enough room and that the organizers would realize more people sat in seats than had actually registered. After about half an hour no one else had boarded and several seats were still empty. The driver closed the door. The bus lurched down a narrow lane toward the border.
Within minutes it stopped. Zsolt and I sat near the back. From our window we could only see fields. We did not know what caused the delay. Ute and Agnes sat a little farther ahead. The driver opened the door and got out. Everyone followed. We saw that abandoned Trabants blocked the lane. Ute and Agnes had good instincts. They walked down the road. Then they started to run. We saw them pass a metal barrier that we thought must be the border. Other people ran. Ute and Agnes disappeared. A pack of East Germans raced down the road. Then everyone was gone. After all these weeks, Ute and Agnes had finally escaped. Zsolt and I stopped. We snapped celebratory shots at the metal barrier with my last frames of film. I felt a pang of regret as I realized that I had no pictures of Ute and Agnes. I had taken them for granted and thought they’d always be there. The end had come so suddenly.
Then Zsolt chatted with a Hungarian man who stood nearby. The man told us the border crossing lay farther up the road. We grabbed our bags and ran. Soon we saw one overwhelmed border guard. People cut through fields and bolted behind him. Others who were bolder, ran in front, beyond arm’s reach. The guard did not stop anyone. I even thought that I saw him smile. It was a human stampede. Later I found out that more than 600 East Germans had raced by foot into Austria. Ute and Agnes long gone, I wished them the best in my heart and then crossed into Austria to interview as many people as I could find.
I stood on the dirt road, the dry earth disturbed by so many trampling feet. The air smelled musty. The sun illuminated floating specks of dust. Brown grass, desiccated by the summer sun, rustled in the breeze.
During one interview, I sensed that someone was staring at me from behind. At first I ignored this sensation. Then I turned. Agnes and Ute stood on the road waiting for me. I stopped the interview and ran over, yelled for Zsolt to join us.
“We wanted to come back to say goodbye,” Agnes said. “There is a tent up the road with food and some people who help us. They’ll find Ute’s uncle.”
My throat tightened. I could not believe that we stood together in Austria, Ute and Agnes finally safe. Not wanting to linger, they soon walked back up the road, farther into Austria. Zsolt and I turned in the opposite direction, crossed back into Hungary and drove to Budapest.
East German refugees flooded into Hungary. The crisis escalated. More refugee camps opened. The Austrians waived visa requirements for East Germans, but the Hungarians still did not allow them to leave. One day in early September, news leaked that the Hungarian government would open the border the next day and let East Germans out. Early in the morning I went to Ute and Agnes’s old camp. More journalists arrived. Someone set up a table on the lawn and put a television on it. I stood in a good position. The crowd of journalists grew. Not long after, a news presenter read a statement that the border was now open for East Germans.
People in the camp applauded. Some cried from happiness. I wanted to whoop with joy, hug people that I knew in the camp, but instead stood aside and recorded what I saw.
Children on a hillside waved Hungarian and West German flags. Then people ran and packed their belongings. Many families had camped in cars. Their interiors were strewn with blankets, bottles of water and food packages. Young guys painted the West German flag on cars. Others who feared the decision could be reversed just left.
A friend and I drove to the border, the highway north from Budapest to Austria, a sea of Trabants. People sang; passengers hung out the windows. At the border they cheered the guards who waved them through. For hours we stood and watched a steady stream of cars go by. Then in the early hours of the morning we drove back down the deserted highway to Budapest.
A week later I received my first letter from Sabine, who still lived in Dresden. By then she knew of Ute’s escape. I thought that I detected a note of bitterness in her letter when she wrote, “I was so busy that I couldn’t be sorry for Ute.”