Seizing The

By Richard Lacayo

It took the Breite family barely 24 hours to abandon everything they knew and bolt for a new life in the West. Though their discontent had been brewing for years, Olaf, 28, and Marlies, 26, had never seriously contemplated leaving their East German village of Schonermark, near Potsdam, until Sept. 11. That night, shortly after midnight, Hungary began permitting East German refugees to cross over en masse into Austria. The Breites watched West German television coverage of the Great Escape and realized that the Iron Curtain had parted, but that it could be drawn shut again at any moment. By lunchtime the following day, they were preparing to leave.

To avoid raising suspicions, Olaf, a roofer, returned to work after their midday decision. Marlies headed to the bank, where she withdrew nearly all their savings and converted just enough of it into Czech currency, she explains, "to allow us to pretend to border officials that we were going to Czechoslovakia for a short vacation." Because they were afraid to expose their plans even to friends and family, there was no one to bid them farewell at 9 that night, when they piled their children -- Christian, 5, Susann, 3, and Katrin, 9 months -- into their worn getaway car, a 1972 Fiat. They packed just a pair of knapsacks, then took off on what would be a five-day odyssey to the West.

Crossing into Czechoslovakia was no problem. But entering Hungary required an East German exit permit they did not have. The Breites had to abandon the car and ford a river under cover of darkness. Sympathetic Czechs led them to a spot on the Ipoly, a shallow Danube tributary, where other East Germans were making the same trek. Olaf carried two children across; Marlies toted the third. On the Hungarian side, their luck held. Though it was 3:30 a.m., a bus happened by. "There were other refugees inside," Marlies recalls. "And we kept picking up people all along the route."

After a rail hop to Budapest and a $76 cab ride across the Austrian border, they reached Vienna, where they sent relatives a postcard explaining what they had done. From Vienna, the West German embassy sent them to a transit camp near Munster in the Federal Republic, where Olaf was quickly offered a roofing job in nearby Ochtrup. He finds the money much better than his old pay -- 18 West German marks ($9.50) an hour, vs. 5.4 East German marks ($2.85 at the official exchange rate). "The materials, equipment and technology are as different as night and day," says Olaf. "Here you use cranes and power drills. There, muscle, hammer and chisel."

While good jobs are not hard to come by in the Federal Republic, where skilled labor is in short supply, good housing is another matter. Unlike many of their fellow refugees, the Breites again got lucky. Through a Catholic social-welfare organization, they were able to rent a five-room furnished bungalow on a tree-lined street. "We expected a small apartment, not this," says a delighted Marlies.

In the East, the Breites had been frustrated in their plans to buy a home, but it was not this that drove them West. "It is the yearning for the little luxuries that are daily conveniences here," Marlies explains. "The daily irritations keep building up in you -- no bananas, bread only in the morning, standing in line." While they save for a new car, Olaf bikes to work. But they already have a new color TV and -- something they did without at home -- a telephone. "It's like a fairy tale," sighs Marlies. "But we are getting used to it."

With reporting by Rhea Schoenthal/Ochtrup