Andrea Rugbarth was 27 when she realized that she no longer wanted to live in the GDR. It was the day her future husband Klaus was arrested in Bulgaria. The young couple had traveled from Plauen in Saxony to the Black Sea. During a hiking trip, Klaus Rugbarth stayed away from his travel group. The Bulgarian police arrested him on suspicion of fleeing the republic, and he spent the rest of his vacation in prison. Around 2,000 GDR citizens tried to escape to the West across the Bulgarian-Turkish border.
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But Klaus Rugbarth wasn’t one of them. “He was only released in Berlin because no attempt to escape could be proven,” remembers Andrea Rugbarth. “But that shocked us. We didn’t want to feel so unfree.” In 1985, the couple submitted an application to leave the country and prepared everything to ensure that processing was as smooth as possible. The Rugbarths got married and paid off loans. While they were waiting for a decision to leave the country, their eldest son was born. But they were left alone with the joy of the little boy. “The moment we submitted our application to leave the country, we no longer had any friends or family.” Most people didn’t even want to say hello. “Out of fear,” says Andrea Rugbarth.
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The now 66-year-old sits in a café in Hamburg’s Langenhorn district and remembers a time that she couldn’t talk about for many years. Because nothing came of the matter of a smooth departure. While planning their move to the Federal Republic, the small family eventually met other people who wanted to leave the country. People met for walks or for barbecues. This did not go unnoticed by the Stasi. The Rugbarths were suddenly under surveillance. Andrea Rugbarth later viewed her file. The harmless meetings were classified as gatherings of an anti-state group.
The couple wrote a letter and asked the responsible office when they expected their application to leave the country to be processed. “We also wrote in it that we felt persecuted and harassed.” That was the point at which the situation escalated. Because they dropped the letter into a public mailbox, the Rugbarths were accused of “public disparagement” of the state. They were taken into custody in what is now Chemnitz. Andrea Rugbarth was able to bring her son, now one and a half years old, to her mother before she was arrested. “I can still hear my child crying today,” she says, taking a few breaths before continuing the story.
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Her husband was imprisoned in Cottbus, and she spent ten months in prison “Red Ox” in Halle. “In prison they tried to destroy people psychologically,” says Rugbarth and talks about the harassment she had to endure. “For example, we were only allowed to report with our prisoner number, otherwise we would be punished.” In 1988, the Rugbarths were among the 33,000 political prisoners who were ransomed by the Federal Republic during the time of the division of Germany.
Andrea Rugbarth originally comes from Thuringia, her husband from the island of Rügen. They wanted to make a new start in the middle of Germany. But after the first few days in a reception camp in Giessen, they decided to go to Hamburg first. A friend lived in the Hanseatic city and her husband had a brother here. Two months later, the grandmother brought the son to Hamburg – and they stayed. For decades, only a handful of people knew that they came from the GDR. “It was clear that we wouldn’t tell anyone about this,” says Andrea Rugbarth. There were too many prejudices against GDR citizens. “And I didn’t want to talk about what happened to us.”
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In Hamburg, the Rugbarths took over a plumbing, heating and roofing business and had two more sons. In 1993, Andrea Rugbarth began working again in her own profession as a civil engineer, which she continues to do to this day. On the occasion of German Unity Day, her story is part of the exhibition “Crafts in Luggage”, which is currently on display in the Elbcampus of the Chamber of Crafts.
When her sons had all reached school age, Andrea Rugbarth decided to also get involved in society. “I felt the need to give something back,” she says. The commitment started small in the school parents’ council and eventually led to the citizenry through the youth welfare committee of the Hamburg-Nord district in 2008. Andrea Rugbarth held a mandate for the SPD there for seven years. She pushed through the establishment of an investment and development bank and, among other things, was deputy chairwoman of the parliamentary committee of inquiry into the construction of the Elbphilharmonie.
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Today she is involved in the Langenhorner citizens’ association and in the Federal Foundation for former political prisoners in Bonn. In March 2023, she and other affected people founded a new umbrella organization, the “Initiative for Justice for the Victims of the Communist Dictatorship”. One of the demands is to decouple the compensation for politically persecuted people from the GDR from proof of need, and another is to count the period of forced labor in SED prisons as pension points.
Andrea Rugbarth still has a divided relationship with her former homeland. She is annoyed by the complaining of many East Germans when it comes to their own work situation. Some people still lack the insight that they have to “take action themselves in a different economic system”. But she also sees mistakes in politics. The large cities have been “beautifully restored”. However, no answer has ever been found to the decline of smaller cities and the previously existing industrial infrastructure.
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The 66-year-old is ambivalent about German Unity Day. It is an occasion to celebrate, but yes: “It is a day on which we should also be aware that there are still major differences between East and West and that it should be a common task to improve living conditions in the East to adapt in a way that makes people feel engaged.”
She also views the AfD’s strengthening in the new federal states critically and with concern. She believes it is wrong to blame it solely on the dissatisfaction of the East Germans, or even to assume that the East German population has a tendency towards right-wing views. “People experience current politics as patronizing.” Rugbarth cites the Building Energy Act as an example. The measures taken during the Corona period were another matter. “Anyone who has an opinion that differs from that of the mainstream is quickly defamed. People in East Germany have already experienced this and are reacting to it more strongly.” What Germany needs is an open culture of discussion. “Completely normal criticism of state actions is part of a democracy and must be possible.”
On Tuesday, Andrea Rugbarth will be one of 1,300 guests at the German Unity Day ceremony in the Elbphilharmonie. “I really hope that it’s not just self-praise, but also about what needs to be done.”
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2023-10-04 03:18:01
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