Life after death

‘Refugees didn’t just escape a place. They had to escape a thousand memories until they’d put enough time and distance between them and their misery to wake to a better day.’ (Nadia Hashimi)

I learnt a new expression in Germany this week: ‘Ich bin ein Anhänger Jesu’: that is, ‘I’m a follower of Jesus.’ Anhänger. An interesting use of metaphorical language. It’s the same word that we’d use, in English, for a trailer. A trailer has no power of its own and relies entirely on the vehicle that pulls it. To be a follower of Jesus is, in the words of 18th century preacher Chales Finney, completely dependent on ‘power from on high’. It’s as if God can draw us in all kinds of directions and make the most amazing journeys possible. Without him, we are like a trailer standing unhitched at the roadside. That’s certainly been true in my experience, and for others too.

Margitta was 7 years old when her father, a Christian who resisted Communist ideology openly at increasing risk, made the bold decision to leave East Germany (the former DDR) to escape to the West. They couldn’t have known that, just one year later, the Berlin Wall would be built and that journey would be impossible. Margitta remembers vividly wearing extra clothing – the only possessions they could take with them – as they climbed onto a train. To carry bags would have looked suspicious to the border authorities and tempted arrest. It was Easter Sunday which, for Christians, represents life-after-death, when they stepped off the train in West Berlin.

It was the beginning of a new life, but certainly not the end. The next few years were marked by being moved from place-to-place, firstly in West Berlin and then, after having been flown out of the isolated island city that Berlin had now become, in West Germany. Margitta remembers living in large rooms full of refugees with tables upturned to create makeshift beds, then in apartment blocks with brightly-painted coloured doors, then again in halls where families were separated only by sheets hanging from rails or the ceiling. It was a painful experience, especially for Margitta’s Mum, to be separated so far from her extended family and all that had been home.

Last night, as I watched the German movie, ‘Bornholmer Straße’ with Margitta and her Christian husband Uli, it brought these memories back to life. I visited Berlin last week and, seeing the film play out the drama that had happened that night – some 28 years after the Wall had been built – when the heavily-guarded border between East and West finally opened again, was an emotional experience. For many trapped in the East who had felt like prisoners in their own country, this Kairos moment really was like a death-to-life experience. Margitta looks back with thanks for how God grasped hold of her family – and took them on that journey of hope, to freedom.

Ein Anhänger Jesu.