A secret flight at night

On December 22, 1958, a young girl barely sixteen years old named Louise Justen boarded a train from Eberswalde to the west to escape her brutal foster aunt and reunite with her mother. She was assisted by a priest who had been helping her plan her escape for three years before she actually carried out her plan. “Planning the flight was slow. The pastor and I had to meet secretly. If my aunt had learned about it, they would have reported him and he would been removed from his position. We’d secretly meet in the cinema, hiding in the crowd. He’d also slip me notes and in our conversations in the cinema we pretended to talk about the Church. It was crucial to study every detail of the escape plan. A friend of mine knew about my intentions. Then, in December, the day of my escape came. The priest got a train ticket for me and my friend helped me to smuggle clothing out of the flat of my aunt. She stood underneath the bathroom window and I passed her some of my clothes through the window. Every time I threw out some clothes, I flushed the toilet. She picked all of it up and put it in a bag. Then we met outside, just a few blocks away from the flat. She waited for me and then she accompanied me to the train station,” she recalled. In this way Luise Justen managed to escape from her foster home and a few hours later happily crossed the border to the West.