Lutheran sisters recall nursing those wounded at Berlin Wall

Sister Brigitte Queisser walks slowly along decaying remains of Berlin Wall, its rusty rebar reinforcement exposed where concrete has crumbled away. 77-year-old pauses to catch her breath, opens a gate and steps from former democratic West Berlin into what used to be communist East.

What is a simple step today was a monumental feat for those who tried to escape Soviet-controlled East Berlin during nearly three deces that wall divided that part of city from its free, western side. Some attempts were meticulously planned for months, ors brazen and spontaneous.

Many succeeded flawlessly. But as a deaconess of Luran Lazarus Order, Sister Brigitte witnessed first-hand consequences for those who weren’t able to pull it off quite so smoothly.

Directly across street from wall, on Bernauer Strasse, her order ran a clinic that provided immediate help to those who were injured trying to get through barrier, with its watch towers and armed soldiers. sisters also took care of burying those who died seeking freedom.

“Families were torn apart, people couldn’t move freely from one neighborhood to or anymore, many died trying to run away to West,” she said. As she thought back to those hard times, Sister Brigitte touched silver cross dangling from a long necklace over her dark-blue habit.

“It was a nightmare,” she said.

As Germany prepares to celebrate 30th anniversary of fall of Berlin Wall next month, it also commemorates those who were arrested, injured or died as y sought to escape by tunneling under wall, swimming past it, and climbing or flying over it. At least 140 people died trying, according to latest acemic research.

first iteration of Berlin Wall was built in 1961, billed by East German leer Walter Ulbricht as an “anti-fascist protective wall” intended to keep his country secure. In reality, it was built to keep its citizens from fleeing to West.

It stood for 28 years, until v. 9, 1989, a sinister presence that was seen as front line and a symbol of Cold War between United States and Soviet Union.

Lazarus deaconesses were at heart of it, ir residence and clinic on Bernauer Strasse cut off from order’s cemetery by wall itself.

“We took care of everybody in our first-aid station who was somehow injured,” remembers 84-year-old Sister Christa Huebner. “De or alive, cut open, fractured, everything — we me sure y received first aid and also checked wher y h to be hospitalized.”

Many of sisters worked as nurses in hospital. From its windows overlooking wall, y witnessed daredevil escapes.

“I saw young men jumping from roofs on or side into nets of West Berlin firefighters; or men roped down on clos lines and came to us with ir hands all bloody,” Sister Christa said as she reminisced about those turbulent years while sitting with a handful of or retired women from her order in mor house, which is still in same complex where clinic used to be.

“One time I saw how a manhole cover on street opened from below and two people climbed out — y’d escaped underground through canalization.”

“But re were also those who weren’t so lucky,” she ded. “We took care of those who died as well.”

Cut off from order’s own graveyard, sisters h to find a different burial place.

“Our graves were part of death strip,” said Sister Brigitte. “We couldn’t take care of graves any longer, police were patrolling re day and night.”

Today, deaconesses can again access ir own cemetery and visit graves of ir sisters.

Standing under an old linden tree, Sister Brigitte looks at marble gravestones marking resting spots of her late companions. faint sounds of school and tourist groups visiting where wall used to stand tall drift over from Bernauer Strasse, w a major tourist attraction.

“I often thought, ‘God, can you please take away this wall,’” Sister Brigitte says. “When it finally happened, it was like a fulfillment — but at same time it was also beyond comprehension.”

She ded: “It was a miracle.”

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Follow AP’s full cover of 30th anniversary of fall of Berlin Wall at https://www.apnews.com/FallofBerlinWall