39
“It set me free,” says Peter
Keup, of how ballroom
dancing made him feel while
growing up in Dresden. He
excelled at it competitively
in partnership with his
sister Uta, and in 1981 they
were offered the chance
to represent the G.D.R.
internationally—but only if
their family first withdrew
a long-standing exit-visa
application. They refused.
“That’s when I took the
decision to escape,” he says.
In 1981, at just 19, Keup set
out for Czechoslovakia with
a plan to swim across the
River Danube from Hungary
into Austria. He had 80 DM
from his grandparents hidden
in the seam of his jeans,
which he hoped would pay
his way to freedom. Instead
he was caught on a train
to Bratislava, arrested for
currency smuggling and
returned to the G.D.R. After
a confession extracted
under brutal interrogation,
he was jailed by the Stasi
for 10 months, spending
long periods in solitary
confinement. Keup’s
grandparents’ lawyer helped
convince the West German
government to pay a $55,000
ransom, and suddenly he
really was free. “For the first
time it made me feel like an
independent human being,”
he says, of receiving his
Begrüßungsgeld. The yellows
and violets of the bouquet
of freesia flowers he bought
for his grandmother Anna
remain bright in his mind.
Keup boarded a train for the
West German city of Essen
and a new life. Years later, the
Wall fell, and he and his sister
danced together again.
Jens Müller, a.k.a. graffiti
artist Tasso, owns many black
Edding 850 marker pens
today, but he is pretty sure that
jumbled somewhere among
them in his warehouse studio
in Meerane is the one that
changed his life. “For me it was
the first time I had seen graffiti
tags, on every corner in every
place,” he says, of driving with
friends around Kreuzberg in
West Berlin as a 23-year-old.
“I was wondering, ‘How have
they done this?’ And then I see
journalists, who would help
him smuggle his film reels
out. Shooting sometimes
literally from the hip, he
wielded his camera like a
weapon. “I felt so trapped
by the Wall,” says the 65-year-
old. “Taking photographs was
the work I did to fight against
that feeling.” Hauswald and
his friends bought a victory
feast of foods unavailable
in the East with their welcome
money. “Kiwi and radicchio,
that kind of stuff,” he says.
“Today I know my way around
exotic fruits better than many
Westerners. And I still love
to cook.”
On a gray day in November
1988, 23-year-old fashion
model and designer Grit
Seymour was given four
hours to leave the G.D.R.
Her exit-visa application
had been unexpectedly
approved. “I had to speed-
pack,” she says. “My
mother walked me to say
goodbye. Of course, we
shed a lot of tears.” She
stepped penniless into
West Berlin, but remembers
feeling instantly liberated.
“It was like this huge block
of concrete had fallen
off my body.” With her
Begrüßungsgeld she bought
a copy of fashion magazine
Vogue Italia, a window into
a glamorous new world.
On the night the Wall fell,
Seymour was already
modeling for Gianni Versace
in Milan. She returned as
fast as she could to Berlin to
be reunited with family and
friends. “It was like a dream
coming true,” she says.
it must be a pen, a marker, and
so I said, ‘I want to have this
marker.’” He found one
in a Karstadt department
store that cost 10 of his
100 DM. “That was a lot.
My friends thought I was crazy.”
He worked in construction
following reunification,
eventually becoming a
freelance artist. Today his tag
is recognized around the world.
He has visited 32 different
countries to make, exhibit
and promote his work.
A PEN UNLIKE ALL THE OTHERS
READING
MATERIAL
FOR THE
RUNWAY
A BOUQUET
OF FLOWERS
FOR
GRANDMA
Tasso with an
Edding marker
pen like the one he
bought in 1989
NANNA HEITMANN—MAGNUM PHOTOS FOR TIME
