I have mentioned among my boatman recollections that the
summer of the year 1963 was a dense period for us fourth-grade
students of the Budapest Technical University in our year. As soon
as we completed our practice in the yard we had to pack up our
suitcases for our practice abroad. As we have been collected at the
university to get our instructions, one of the other mariners has
expressed my thoughts: “The last thing I desire now is having a trip
to the GDR.” All of us have been mistaken. The three weeks of the
GDR practice have been the most useful of all we had that year.
Our practice have been organised in the form swap of student-
groups. The group of the German students have also been called
together to have a meeting with us before they left for home after
their practice time. This “white table” meeting took place in a small
open-air pub up in Buda castle. Being in the same building as the
students' hostel of our university, it has been the place our students
visited regularly. The Germans knew it, too, as during their stay they
have been accommodated in the hostel.
At the table laden with beer many long-lasting relationships
have been created. It was also there that I have met my would-be
German friend, with whom later my wife and me will have met many
times in our country and in theirs. His name was Hans, he said he
had a wife and a family. We were to meet again in the GDR.
Our trip started with an 18-hour railway journey on the Balt-
Orient train. The first hours have been fine, but as night came, and
we had no sleeping-car tickets, it became hard. We arrived at Berlin
early morning. We had two teachers of the university as guides, and
at the station our German guide met us. There was another
colleague of his to help us, but he was to join us later. During our
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stay we visited five big cities in the country beside the capital, the
eastern part of Berlin. One of our own guides from home was dr. B.,
our lecturer in propulsion. He was the finest man I have ever met in
my life.
In Berlin we were astonished to find the town in ruins, almost in
the same condition as it had been in the last days of the war. Even
two years later we, my wife and me, will have found it the same. Our
team of 18 students and two teachers soon fell apart, and a number
of smaller groups has formed. We mariners were only six, and it
automatically became a close group. Out of us Emery has always
been running after girls, he seldom came with us. Stephen and
Anthony have been friends for a long time, both of them with a back-
ground of important fathers. They could not accept us with
Theodore in their circles, as T. has also come from a poor family.
And there was Andrew, he has been, and remained as long as I had
him in view, a technology fanatic.
Actually in Berlin we did not have any official programs, only
privately our group of six have visited the Pergamon Museum. The
other officially organised program has been the visit to the Sans
Soucie Palace in Potsdam that had been the summer resort of
Friedrich II in the 18th century. The palace had only a small part
restored yet and we knew about Potsdam only that treaties about
the future of Germany after World War II have been signed there,
anyway, the trip was worth the effort. We made the trip in the double-
decker train being a novelty at that time, but the route took about 40
miles instead of the actual 10, as we had to circle the whole of West-
Berlin. Our group of six allotted a small sum to an evening program
in the place of entertainment Friedrichstadtpalast. The main reason
of our visit has been that Theodore had always been a great fan of
the dancer Edina Balogh, who with her partner György Klapka had
their contract just there. After three days we have been packed on a
train for Rostock, the seat of the university, our partner at swap. In
the evening after our arrival there was a dinner for our team, where
some of the students, who had visited our country, have also been
present. There I met Hans again. We renewed our relationship and
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changed addresses.
Both in Rostock and its seaside resort sister-town of Warne-
münde there was an up-to-date shipyard each. In the latter even 60-
thousand-ton freighters have been built. We were deeply influenc-
ed by the vast cable-crane that covered the whole territory of the
launch-site. In general we had learned a lot, because eighteen
years of "socialist" (actually feudalist) system could not wipe out of the Germans the ambition for precise, excellent work. Even the
smallest details held something worth learning for us. This meant at
the same time that larger towns had an ugly industrial look, all of
them. Only little settlements had retained their homely character, in
German "Gemütlichkeit".
The official programs have been well organised. Beside them,
we had leisure time to visit the beach. In August weather is usually
fine at the Baltic, and it was so the first day we arrived. It was fine to
enjoy the 80 degrees F temperature of both air and water. The next
day the calm turned into a lively breeze. Air temperature remained
the same, but as waves mixed warm water with the cold in the
deeper bottom, water temperature fell to 62 degrees F. In that day
only we foreign students had the courage to swim, locals didn't.
It goes without saying, I have taken my camera with me. When
dr. B. saw me shoot he gave me some advice about photography. It
has not been a new hobby of mine, but one piece of his advice I took
seriously: I tried colour slides. And since that time I have always
made my pictures on slides.
However hard it was for me to leave on this trip, I liked the
country and its people. We liked also the well organised factories
where we saw manufacture all the equipment needed to build a fine
ship.
In Warnemünde, the ferry of the Malmoe line came every day to
the pier. It was a great sight as the large gate of the ferry opened,
and from the belly of the ship every kind of transport means from
cars to trains were coming out. The ferry looked enormous for my
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eyes accustomed to river-boats. From Rostock our group made a
small detour to Strahlsund, also a seaside town and the place of a
shipyard. The yard was building floating fishing factories for the
Soviets. Strahlsund is a real Hansa town, it looks like a model village
for Piko railways.
Returning to Rostock we have been taken to the workshop,
where the giant Diesel engines have been built for the 60-thousand-
plus-ton freighters. The engines looked like steam-engines with
open casings and their cross-heads. We learned, that these
engines are taken apart, and in the engine room of the ship re-
assembled again.
Finishing our Baltic program we moved our seat to Magdeburg,
and there we visited the SKL engine factory, as well as the river
shipyard on the Elbe. It was my first visit to SKL, but my employers
in years to come would send me more than once to this place.
Magdeburg has been one of the German towns heavily punished by
bombing. The same as Berlin, it was in the same state as at the end
of the war. Overall in the country, there was a shortage of food at
that time. We had nothing to do with it, as our supply has been
provided by our guides, but I have seen in the shops, as people got
their butter on ration cards. When I returned there in later years with
my colleague, he said it had been this year when he has seen only
flowers in the windows of butcher shops instead of meat. Two years
later, when I visited the country with my wife, there was no shortage
at all.
It was in Magdeburg in the cathedral, where we saw a painting
about the whole town in ruins after bombing, with only the cathedral
standing upright unhurt. In the cathedral I have seen also a
wonderful medieval clockwork with at least twelve different
functions.
I do not remember in which of the visited towns, in a sports
goods shop I caught glimpse of a set of springs, a true precise
German product in a style from before the war. I needed it, as some
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months before, on my first voyage that year on the tugboat
“Kaposvár”, I had damaged my right wrist during winding up the
auxiliary engine. That time I had carried my arm in a Bonaparte
pose and for two weeks I could not do my work properly. It must
have healed faulty, to this day small bones are sometimes mixing up
with each other. After the accident my right hand was very weak. For
this reason I wanted some means to go over this trouble. In about
three years, starting with one spring, and coming up to four of the
six, my hand has improved well.
From Magdeburg we have been led to Leipzig. There -- it is the
historical seat of the Saxon state -- we had nothing to do with our
trade, but we have seen the famous field of the Battle of Nations and
the valuable collection of the museum. In the hostel there were
locals, girls among them, and our boys -- Emery and Theodore --
had their romance in the night before we left for Dresden, our last
stop.
This last of the places visited has had nothing for us technically,
it has only be installed into the program for tourist purposes. Now
the town has its new centre created of awful concrete buildings.
That time it was the same heap of ruins as Berlin or Magdeburg.
Even worse. We could see how precisely, in the last month of the
war, it was destroyed to a line, and over that line everything stayed
intact. As if cut by a giant knife, even half of the palace Zwinger
(cage) stood in its original state and in two steps from the line
damage has been complete.
The town had been beautifully situated on the river Elbe. There
is a hilly landscape on both banks, and on the embankment there
are fine works of architecture. Farther, the mountains of the frontier
between German and Czech lands can bee seen in a blue line. The
German side of that mountains is called the Saxon Switzerland and
it is a famous and really wonderful resort country. The river Elbe had
not impressed me very much. It is a small river, not bigger than our
Tisza, even water you could not see in it much. At least then as I saw
it, the situation was that. I saw boats, but it was my impression that
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to sail on such an insignificant waterway can be a very hard job.
My memory is storing four themes about Dresden. The first
thing in the town has been our visit to the Zwinger. It has been
turned into a large gallery of art and I think, there is no way to see all
the precious works other, than having a job in the museum and a
permission to visit all the halls and store-rooms. It is not behind in
any sense of the Louvre or the Hermitage. The Germans at that time
did not have the finesse to guard these artworks in a modern sense:
I could make as many pictures as wanted in the halls illuminated
well by natural light. Even flashlights have not been prohibited.
The other three are in close connection. First our farewell din-
ner. The German professor, our guide during these three weeks,
has been very thrifty and, finding more money left than necessary
for the remaining time, he wanted to increase his spending, to align
it to schedule. He did not want to get less funds for a similar project
next time by economising anything. At the dinner we had all we
wished and, unfortunately more drinks than necessary. When at
last we left the restaurant, all of us have been drunken. Except me,
as I have had a liver problem, and instead of being drunken I felt
unwell, rather to say ill. This is my second and third piece of
memory.
The fourth one is meeting an old friend, the next day I would
have a date with her. For this reason I was not leaving the hostel for
the excursion to the Saxon Switzerland. I was waiting for the person
whom I was to meet. During night I have not slept a minute, I visited
the toilet a dozen times. In the morning I could go to sleep at last, my
organism could overtake the trouble, and I have slept about two
hours. As soon as we had arrived to Dresden I wrote to Renate, my
correspondence partner from my secondary school years, to visit
me at that day. I had not been aware then, it would be the day for the
excursion. When I woke up after the short sleep I went to the gate-
keeper and asked him to call me in case somebody wanted me. I did
not know if she would come or wouldn't. I did not take anything for
breakfast, but I wished nothing, either.
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At about 10 a.m. I was addressed by a girl coming into my room.
I had to confess photographs could cheat. She had sent me some
photos of herself at the beginning of our correspondence. She
looked a girl with a pretty face and a tall, fine figure. Actually her face
has been ordinary, almost ugly, and her figure as a plank. Anyway, I
have shown a great enthusiasm to see her and wanted to greet her
by a kiss on the cheek. She avoided it and gave me her handshake,
as masculine as it could be. Later I would see, it was only a GDR
custom. Her manner has been non-committal, and I could sense
she expected me to understand her indication. Well, I did not feel
very much like courting a girl, it did not cause me any problem to
follow her wish.
She did not want to speak too much about herself, I think she
had her boy-friend all right. We have been the same age of 22. She
might have considered that day an unpleasant obligation, and she
fulfilled it in a proper way. Her accent was very Saxonish. First I
could hardly understand a word, but later I became accustomed to
her pronunciation.
We went to a modern gallery where she played the guide. After
that she took me up to the top of one of the hills by a cable-car. There
was a restaurant there named “The White Stag”. She invited me to
lunch, and, when I wanted to pay, she objected it. To tell the truth it
did not cost her too much, as I took only a cup of tea with a piece of
cake.
As I watched her eat, I observed the habit, by which Germans
take their salad: they do not take it simultaneously with the main
meal of meat and vegetables, they eat it after. That time it seemed
me funny, but when I will have seen other peoples' customs, it will
have become only one of the details, how different people do the
same thing in different ways. For example, living in Russia and
Ukraine, I have taken the habit of eating some salad before my meal
to improve appetite.
Till afternoon, when she said she had to leave, my nausea has
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gone. I accompanied her to her coach -- she has been living in Karl-
Marx-Stadt, formerly and from 1990 once more, Chemnitz -- and
was making a long walk before returning to the hostel. Well, this was
the last of my memories about the town I mentioned.
And now let me go over to my grown-up period. We have known
each-other with my fiancée since almost childhood, but our
partnership and engagement began only when I returned from my
study-tour in the GDR. I have written some pages about my river
boat assignment soon after our marriage, this time let me relate
what we experienced with the family of Hans when he invited us to
spend a holiday with them. During the preparation for our wedding
we were sending out invitation to the ceremony to several ac-
quaintances including Hans in the GDR. After the wedding we have
got a small, but pretty present from them. In the half year on the river
boat I neglected them, but, when the company gave me the job of
engineer in the ship repair yard, I informed our German friends
about how I did it.
One day in early spring in 1965 we have got a letter from them
inviting us to spend 3 weeks with them on the Baltic coast in June.
Both our families were against our going, but we decided to take the
advantage of their invitation. It has not been a cheap enterprise for a
couple just beginning their common life. We had to get money to
buy our tickets. Also to purchase some gifts for all of them. And not
to forget about the costs the next year to invite them in turn. Not to
mention the trouble of getting permission from our employers for
two weeks of unpaid leave. Against all odds, we succeeded in our
proceedings.
I have mentioned that after my second trip upriver the previous
year of 1964, there was no navigation, because of the extremely low
water-level. For half a year there were no significant precipitation in
the whole Danube basin. After New Year a large quantity of snow fell
in the Alps. During spring the rain caused troubles, but at last the
river could be used for transport, if not very long. From May,
however, the water-level was equal to that of flood.
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The flood had a great influence on the activities of my employer.
As the Danube came out to the quay, work in the yard had to be
reorganised. The vehicles under construction on the launch-site
have been opened at the bottom to let water in, otherwise displace-
ment forces could have lifted them off their scaffolds. Fuel had to be
pumped out of the subterranean tanks to save environment from
contamination. Two days before our trip to the GDR I worked five
hours at the pumps. For the next day another rise in level has been
forecast, with it there would be two feet of water on the premises.
The forecast has been right. My last day before the trip is recorded
on photos taken by colleagues and me. When we arrived by foot to
the yard, we could reach our office only by paddle boats. The work-
shop have been deserted, only our office was working. The next day
the water was to rise again and my colleagues were ordered to take
a room at headquarters for emergency. The next day we departed
on our trip. Through many miles the train was following the river-
side, it was a terrible sight to be in the middle of a great sea of
flooded meadows. Only here and there higher points remained dry.
Our journey has been tiring at the beginning, but later, when the
old couple from the same compartment got out, we remained in two.
We could even sleep on the benches.
Dawn woke us up and we sat to the window to see as much as
possible. At the Czechoslovak-German border the check did not
last long and after that only a few hours remained to Berlin. It has not
changed much in two years since I last saw it. Ugly and industrial, it
was even unchanged in 100 years. As our train arrived at the East-
ern Railway Station, at once I caught a sight of Hans. We shook
hands and my wife kissed him on the cheek, that has not been
against his desires. He informed us we were to wait a little for the
train to the village of their parents. His wife would wait us there.
We made walks in the station and outside. Then we sat down to
take our food and offered it to him also. He accepted it and drew out
his package. We tried the German sandwiches, cheese between
two thin slices of dark bread smeared with butter. In the coming
weeks it would be our staple for breakfast.
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The special double-decker train left the station and took its
course to the north-east. In a short time we arrived at a small village,
the home of their childhood. I imagined myself, had it not been my
sister's wish to continue her study. It could have been my fate to find
a girl in the country. A short stay in the village, to greet the mother of
H. and to meet the wife of his, took only an hour, and we were wait-
ing for the coach to their living place. They had come to the village to
leave their smaller daughter with her grandmother. The other child,
also a girl, has been 5 then. She was waiting at home with her neigh-
bours in the small town of Oderberg. The small town is situated on a
flood area called Oderbruch where there is an island cut out by the
river Oder, the river's backwater and a canal. It was the place of a
high flood in 1998 with a lot of people evacuated from their houses.
H. moved to this town on the backwater of the Oder with his
family at the same time in 1964 when I was boarding the low-
draught tug. He has got a job there and he has also been a designer
in the small shipyard. They have been living in a community house
with a common court and open-air toilets and no bathrooms. It has
been a typical German worker-house from before the war. Their
apartment in the house, however, has been kept clean, and their
furniture was fine.
We were to wait for another day for our leave by the “Aalbeck
Express”. H's wife, Elfie, has been a pretty country girl with a very
good nature. She took us into her confidence and has always
behaved much more intelligently than her husband, understanding
the fact that we were different. She was an excellent cook and had a
very good taste for both fashion and home furnishing. Their elder
daughter, Sabine, was so beautiful as a 5 year old, that I could not
pair her to anybody else than an angel. She had light blond hair,
blue eyes and an instinctive naivety. We both closed her into our
hearts at once. The spare day we utilised for walking in the town. I
visited the yard with H., where he was working. It has been a much
smaller one than my working place at home.
The next morning the “Aalbeck Express” came to the house. It
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has been an old German truck built before the war, on whose
chassis a passenger cabin for 24 has been fixed. Its entrance was
put to the back and on both sides of an aisle there were three sitting
boxes for four, just as in an out-of-date railway passenger car. Even
windows were of the same design. No need to say, the springs of
the truck were a little harder, than ideal for a comfortable trip. Just as
an ordinary GMC Blue Bird short bus. The 200 miles on wheels to
Aalbeck, the resort village on the northern side of the off-shore is-
land Usedom, have been tiring, but at last we arrived.
The island has been made of sand by waves of the Baltic. It
stretches from west to east in a narrow heap, closing originally the
mouth of the river Oder. On the southern side of the island, there is a
backwater created by the current of the Oder and the sea. The seat
of the neighbouring county is the town of Wolgast, then a GDR
naval base, lies on the mainland. A narrow bridge has been built
over the backwater and the railway track to the island is laid on it.
The Oderberg shipyard has had a property of a wooden barrack
with bed-rooms and all sanitary facilities for self-supporting recreat-
ion. We had a room with my wife with two lower and two upper beds,
but no room-mates, fortunately. The building has been situated at
the edge of the beach, and had a large roofed terrace in front of the
entrance. We have spent 12 days on this place and it is mainly
pleasant to remember our stay.
Within the group of the Bootz family, beside us, there was
another outsider for the yard, he was Werner, E's younger brother. A
newly graduated physicist, not at home with women, and it could be
seen at the first sight. He was a person to be liked at once. He had a
great admiration to my wife, and she felt no risk in being friendly with
him. Of course, I found it strange at first, but I realised the innocence
of their relationship.
The weather was fine during all our stay, and the beach, with its
enormous grains of pure quartz sand, a pleasure. Being June the
water temperature did not exceed 60 degrees F. Only my trained
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skin could stand it, I have been swimming alone. The biosphere has