The muted class room

In November 1956, news of the brutal and bloody suppression of the Hungarian Uprising reached the GDR through various media channels. The 12th-grade students at the secondary school in Storkow wanted to take a political stand and showed their solidarity with the rebels in Hungary by observing a minute of silence during class. The GDR authorities, upon learning of this incident, decided: This act of political disobedience must be prosecuted; the instigators must be found. Teachers were questioned, students interrogated, and parents pressured by being made aware of the potentially devastating consequences for the entire family if they failed to cooperate. But the class sticks together; no one is named as the sole “ringleader.” As a result, the entire class is barred from taking the Abitur exam in the GDR. To escape this punishment—and the constant surveillance by the Stasi—the young adults decide on a drastic step: they leave their country, the GDR. Individually and in small groups, they flee to West Berlin and then on to Bensheim in the Federal Republic of Germany. There, where their high school graduation and freedom await them. Dietrich Garstka, one of the former 12th-grade students, published documentary accounts of the events 50 years later.