In this Sept. 18, 2019, photo, Sister Brigitte Queisser of the Lutheran Lazarus Order poses for a photo in front of concrete remains of the Berlin Wall during an interview with The Associated Press in Berlin. For many years, Sister Brigitte and other deaconesses lived in West Berlin across the street from the wall in the mother house of the Lutheran Lazarus Order, which ran a hospital where many of the people injured while escaping from East Berlin were treated. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The Associated Press
BERLIN (AP) - Sister Brigitte Queisser walks slowly along the decaying remains of the Berlin Wall, its rusty rebar reinforcement exposed where the concrete has crumbled away. The 77-year-old pauses to catch her breath, opens a gate and steps from the former democratic West Berlin into what used to be the communist East.
What is a simple step today was a monumental feat for those who tried to escape Soviet-controlled East Berlin during the nearly three decades that the wall divided that part of the city from its free, western side. Some attempts were meticulously planned for months, others brazen and spontaneous.
Many succeeded flawlessly. But as a deaconess of the Lutheran Lazarus Order, Sister Brigitte witnessed first-hand the consequences for those who weren't able to pull it off quite so smoothly.
Directly across the street from the wall, on Bernauer Strasse, her order ran a clinic that provided immediate help to those who were injured trying to get through the barrier, with its watch towers and armed soldiers. The sisters also took care of burying those who died seeking freedom.
"Families were torn apart, people couldn't move freely from one neighborhood to the other anymore, many died trying to run away to the West," she said. As she thought back to those hard times, Sister Brigitte touched the silver cross dangling from a long necklace over her dark-blue habit.
"It was a nightmare," she said.
As Germany prepares to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall next month, it also commemorates those who were arrested, injured or died as they sought to escape by tunneling under the wall, swimming past it, and climbing or flying over it. At least 140 people died trying, according to the latest academic research.
The first iteration of the Berlin Wall was built in 1961, billed by East German leader Walter Ulbricht as an "anti-fascist protective wall" intended to keep his country secure. In reality, it was built to keep its citizens from fleeing to the West.
It stood for 28 years, until Nov. 9, 1989, a sinister presence that was seen as the front line and a symbol of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Lazarus deaconesses were at the heart of it, their residence and clinic on Bernauer Strasse cut off from the order's cemetery by the wall itself.
"We took care of everybody in our first-aid station who was somehow injured," remembers 84-year-old Sister Christa Huebner. "Dead or alive, cut open, fractured, everything - we made sure they received first aid and also checked whether they had to be hospitalized."
Many of the sisters worked as nurses in the hospital. From its windows overlooking the wall, they witnessed daredevil escapes.
"I saw young men jumping from the roofs on the other side into the nets of the West Berlin firefighters; other men roped down on clothes lines and came to us with their hands all bloody," Sister Christa said as she reminisced about those turbulent years while sitting with a handful of other retired women from her order in the mother house, which is still in the same complex where the clinic used to be.
"One time I saw how a manhole cover on the street opened from below and two people climbed out - they'd escaped underground through the canalization."
"But there were also those who weren't so lucky," she added. "We took care of those who died as well."
Cut off from the order's own graveyard, the sisters had to find a different burial place.
"Our graves were part of the death strip," said Sister Brigitte. "We couldn't take care of the graves any longer, police were patrolling there day and night."
Today, the deaconesses can again access their own cemetery and visit the graves of their sisters.
Standing under an old linden tree, Sister Brigitte looks at the marble gravestones marking the resting spots of her late companions. The faint sounds of school and tourist groups visiting where the wall used to stand tall drift over from Bernauer Strasse, now a major tourist attraction.
"I often thought, 'God, can you please take away this wall,'" Sister Brigitte says. "When it finally happened, it was like a fulfillment - but at the same time it was also beyond comprehension."
She added: "It was a miracle."
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Follow AP's full coverage of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall at https://www.apnews.com/FalloftheBerlinWall
In this Sept. 18, 2019, photo, Sister Brigitte Queisser of the Lutheran Lazarus Order talks in front of concrete remains of the Berlin Wall during an interview with The Associated Press in Berlin. As Germany prepares to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the fall of the wall on Nov. 9, it also commemorates those who were arrested, injured or died as they sought to escape by tunneling under the wall, swimming past it, or climbing or flying over it. Many succeeded flawlessly. But Sister Brigitte witnessed first-hand the consequences for those who weren't able to pull it off quite so smoothly. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The Associated Press
In this Sept. 18, 2019, photo, Sister Brigitte Queisser of the Lutheran Lazarus Order shows a historic photo of the Lazarus sisters looking over the Berlin Wall during an interview with The Associated Press at the order's mother house in Berlin. For many years, the deaconesses lived in West Berlin across the street from the wall and ran a hospital where many of the people injured while escaping from East Berlin were treated. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The Associated Press
This Oct. 22, 2019, photo shows the graves of the sisters of the Lutheran Lazarus Order, next to the grey cross at the center right, in Berlin. During the Cold War, the sisters were separated from their order's cemetery by the Berlin Wall. Remains of the wall still stand at the bottom. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The Associated Press
In this Sept. 18, 2019, photo, Sister Brigitte Queisser of the Lutheran Lazarus Order poses at the entrance of a cemetery that used to be behind the Berlin Wall in the communist East, during an interview with The Associated Press in Berlin. For many years, the order's deaconesses lived in West Berlin and ran a hospital where many of the people injured while escaping from East Berlin were treated. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The Associated Press
In this Sept. 18, 2019, photo, Sister Brigitte Queisser of the Lutheran Lazarus Order stands near graves of the Lazarus sisters during an interview with The Associated Press in Berlin. For many years, the deaconesses lived in West Berlin across the street from the Berlin Wall in a mother house that is seen in the background. The sisters' order ran a hospital where many of the eastern escapees were treated. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The Associated Press
In this Sept. 18, 2019, photo, 84-year-old Sister Christa Huebner of the Lutheran Lazarus Order, which used to run a hospital across from the Berlin Wall, listen to other sisters during an interview with The Associated Press at the order's mother house in Berlin. 'We took care of everybody in our first-aid station who was somehow injured,' remembers Sister Christa. 'Dead or alive, cut open, fractured, everything, we made sure they received first aid and also checked whether they had to be hospitalized.' (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The Associated Press
In this Sept. 18, 2019, photo, 84-year-old Sister Christa Huebner, center, of the Lutheran Lazarus Order, listen to other sisters during an interview with The Associated Press at the order's mother house in Berlin. For many years, the deaconesses lived in West Berlin across from the wall in the mother house of the Lutheran Lazarus Order, which ran a hospital where many of the people injured while escaping from East Berlin were treated. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The Associated Press
This Oct. 27, 2019, photo shows the Lazarus Sisters' graveyard, which during the Cold War used to be in East Berlin and cut off from the sisters' mother house in West Berlin, shown in the background. The remains of the Berlin Wall that used to separate communist East Berlin from democratic West Berlin still exist in this location as part of a wall memorial. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The Associated Press
This Oct. 27, 2019, photo shows the Lazarus Sisters' mother house, background, on the west side of the city behind remains of the Berlin Wall, which are part of a wall memorial. For many years the deaconesses lived in West Berlin across the street from the wall and ran a hospital where many of the eastern escapees were treated. As Germany celebrates the 30th anniversary of the fall of the wall on Nov. 9, it also commemorates those who were arrested, injured or died as they tried to escape by tunneling under the wall, swimming past it, climbing on it or flying over it. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The Associated Press