In 1991, my brother Dieter and his wife Kristina, who live in Leipzig, came to visit me here in Bristol for the first time.  I had not seen them in 34 years.  I was able to take their invitation up to visit them in Leipzig in 1992.

Staying for a whole month made it possible for me to learn all about the happenings there over the last 41 years.

Arriving in Leipzig, I remembered the airport only as a waste ground.  Just after the war, a few other girls and I were sent to clear all the rubble from the landing strip.  We were accompanied by Russian guards to do this work.  (They were very friendly.)

Dieter collected me in his new "Opel Scoda."  Since the unification of East and West Germany everyone strived to own a "Western Car."  Dieter had owned a "Trabant" (known as Trabbi) before, an East-German make.

This car was reliable enough but noisy and not very fast.  The car was developed in many stages.  The undercarriage was made out of sheet metal, had feather springs and not the usual spiral springs.  A steel frame was welded on to the base, and then the body, made out of hard plastic material was added.

In the beginning the motor had two cylinders.  The cost of this car was then 4000 East German Marks.  Later four cylinders were fitted into the motor.  With all the new accessories added, the price rose to 18,000 East German Marks.  At one time a Volks Wagon Engine had been replaced with the old one to make the car go faster, but the engine was too heavy for the chassis, shaking the whole car.  People who had bought those converted cars had to return them and received their money back.  When I arrived, all Western and and Japanese cars could be seen creating traffic jams at rush hours even there.

From the airfield to Dieter's flat, we took a shortcut on country roads, swerving from side to side to avoid massive pot holes.  Passing through the tiny village Schkeuditz I had my first glimpse of the very dilapidated houses.

During the Communists' rule, people who could afford it, were able to get the inside of their rented apartments and houses modernised but the outsides remained unattended throughout those years.  The reason for this was that no scaffolding was available for private uses, only official buildings were kept immaculate.  I should think that all metal had been used for armory.  A friend went to Poland at that time and found people there were using wooden scaffolding.  Painting anything was useless, as after a short while all paint peeled off again.  Durable paint was simply not available.

We passed stretches of wasteland on our way to Dieter's flat, and all at once, in the middle of nowhere, a brand new Service Station had sprung up.  The first sign of change.

Coming eventually to a main road, I realised repairwork had started.  Pot holes were filled in.

Then closer to the estate where Dieter lived, large trenches had been dug, huge pipes, ready to be laid were resting on the sides of the trenches.  Natural Gas was now being introduced.  Dieter told me that it might come from Russia.

Both , Dieter and Kristina lived in an estate called "Gruenau."  These blocks of flats, five stories high, had been built in about 1977.  In the front and back of these blocks, residents had created their own gardens with shrubs, trees and flowers.  It gives the area a friendly atmosphere, which otherwise could have been a bleak place.  Small pathways led along rose beds, attended by town gardeners.  There is a new school and a very large playground had recently been created.  There is also a Post Office, a Bank, a Newsagent, a Cafe, a Book shop, a Cinema a Travel Agency and a Library.  Walking through the Library I noticed still a lot of Communist literature on the shelves.

In the main Library in the town, I found the librarians busy filling bookshelves with Western books.  Those had only arrived a short while ago waiting to be unpacked.

Since the unification some block of flats had already been refurbished and looked brand new.

In every district brand new Spar shops had quickly turned up, with a bottle bank outside.

I really don't know where people went shopping before.  They would have to go to the State owned shops into town.  There had been no advertising.  Everything sold had been put into brown paper bags.

The very first surprise for all the population in Leipzig was the sudden appearance of bananas. Children had never seen a banana or orange before.  Of course everyone bought them en masse.  And then one day, the shops were filled with food and goods over night.  Stalls for free trading appeared everywhere, owned mainly by Vietnamese, selling textiles.  My friends told me that people were going out to do their shopping twice a week, buying trolleys full of food.  With all this lovely food coming in to the shops they had never seen before, they could not resist buying too much so that they themselves turned into dumplings.

Every day Dieter and I went by tram or bicycle to explore the countryside and asked people the conditions since the unification.

100,000 houses and also many farms were in 1992 still unoccupied.  When people fled to the West the empty houses were taken over by the State and were given to the people in need of housing.  They did not need to build any new houses.  After the unification, people who had fled to the West were coming back to claim their own houses and the people who lived in them had to move out.  If any repair work had been done to these houses the rightful owners could not move in until the paid for the cost of the repairs. 

On collective farms all animals were slaughtered.  The meat was stored in freezer centers.  There were no people living on the farms in 1992.

 

To be continued.