Life In Fear Behind The Curtain

By the time Sonja Hefele was four years old, her mother decided to reunite with her husband again, who was working in a uranium mine in Schlaggenwald as a slave laborer. Therefore they moved from Neustadtl to Schlaggenwald, which was basically a fenced off forced-labor camp. Sonja Hefele vividly remembers her first impressions of that place upon her arrival: "Schlaggenwald was surrounded by a fence because of the forced labor. We actually lived behind a fence there and under permanent surveillance. There were loudspeakers everywhere and even as a child you could sense the threat emanating from the Communist regime". She spent most of her childhood there and went to elementary and secondary school in Schlaggenwald. Her life was deeply influenced by constant fear for the life of her father. There were deadly accidents of mine workers on a daily basis and the names of the dead were read out to the camp dwellers through the loudspeakers. She would listen intently to these announcements and prayed not to hear the name of her father.