I made a post last year about my first ever trip on a foreign train, so just thought I’d repeat the post for anyone who missed it first time. Unfortunately, being just three months old, I don’t remember much about the journey.
My first ever trip through the Iron Curtain was in April 1960, when I was just three months old, and apparently had enough drama for my mother to rival a Len Deighton 'Funeral in Berlin' style novel. My dad was Polish and my mum was English. After I was born, my Polish grandparents were eager to see their new grandson. Unfortunately, my dad couldn't go for some work related reason so it was decided my mum would make the journey to Poland alone. She related this story to me in later years.
On that journey on the Nord West express in 1960, my mum was roughing it in the PKP seats overnight with me. She was in a compartment with five others. When the train got to Helmstedt in the early hours of the morning, the border guards from the DDR got on to do the passport check and when they got to my mum, they found some sort of irregularity with her travel documents that would require her to come off the train and get sorted in the office in the station. My mum told me that she got quite anxious and distressed at this news as she was convinced the train would leave without us and she would be stranded in Germany in the middle of the night with her baby. However, the border guards were quite insistent that she had to come into the station. One of the other occupants of the compartment, a man travelling to West Berlin, assured my mum that if the train left for any reason without her, he would personally take her suitcase off the train at Berlin Zoo and entrust it to the railway police there so she could hopefully catch up with it. Reluctantly, my mum got off the train holding me in her arms and accompanied the guards. She remembered that it was snowing heavily as they went down the platform, and some passengers were leaning out of the train windows watching with mild curiosity.
My mum was still rather distressed as they walked down the snowy platform and a railway official asked the border guards what was happening. He saw my mum's anxious state and then in broken English identified himself as the train guard. He told her that he would accompany her to the border guards office as 'the train cannot leave without me'. She said they went down a flight of steps and through some underground passages to a dingy office somewhere. Luckily, I was either sleeping in her arms or at least quiet and not crying. She was asked to take a seat while an official sat behind a desk and made a phone call. My mum remembered that it was one of those old style bakelite phones with the receiver in a large cradle and that the official had a lenthy conversation with someone while thumbing through her passport which was the old style blue UK passport, but travelling on my dad's Polish surname. Two other border guards were standing in the small office together with the train guard who I imagine worked for the DR as the train was about to enter East Germany. My mum said it was all quite intimidating, with the DDR guards dressed in their severe looking uniforms watching her suspiciously as their superior made his phone call.
Finally, the official came off the phone, reached for a rubber stamp, and loudly thumped her passport before telling my relieved mother that she could rejoin the train. I often wonder who the border official rang in the middle of the night, and where this mystery official was, who had the clout to give the authorisation for my mum to continue her journey. As soon as she was clear to go, my mum said the train guard hurried her as quickly as he could back through the passageways and up to the platform. She remembered that when they reached the platform, two men were smoking and stood chatting to another railway official and that they must've been the engine crew as the guard shouted something to them and they started to hurry off towards the locomotive. Meanwhile the train guard escorted her back down the platform to the PKP seating carriage. What my mum remembered most about that stressful night, was that quite a few passengers were leaning out of the train windows and that they started clapping as she passed by them. They were not clapping in derision of her delaying the train but clapping because she had successfully made it back ok. I guess most people taken off the train are detained and not seen again.
My mum made it back with me in her arms to the relief of the other occupants of the compartment, and as soon as she climbed the carriage steps, the train guard blew several times on his whistle and the train set off almost immediately. The man heading to Berlin told my mum that the train was delayed 23 minutes and he was convinced that she would not be coming back. He was amazed the train had been held for so long until my mum told him how the train guard had remained by her side to ensure the train would not leave. My mum was forever eternally grateful for the kindness of that unnamed DR train guard, making sure she was not left behind.
I'd like to think that somewhere in Germany, in a dusty vault belonging to the Deutsche Bahn, there is a faded train running ledger dating from the 1960's stored on a shelf, and on a page dated xx April 1960, a railway clerk has carefully made an entry using a fountain pen: Eastbound Nord West express delayed 23 minutes at Helmstedt - Passenger travel document irregularity.