East German refugees in the Prague embassy

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 23 October 2019

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Thousands of East Germans fled to the West in the summer and autumn of 1989, before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many of them sought refuge in the West German embassy in Prague, where they camped in the grounds and slept in stairwells and corridors, fed by the Red Cross. On September 30th, West German foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher announced that they were free to travel to West Germany.

Hubert and Susanne Kuhn lived in the embassy with their three children for three months. They spoke to Lucy Burns about their experiences.

Photo: a crowd of East-German refugees in Prague wait to be transferred to West Germany after East Germany lifted restrictions on emigration (PASCAL GEORGE/AFP via Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Choosing what to watch night after night the flicking through the endless
0:06.8	searching is a nightmare we want to help you on our brand new podcast off the
0:11.8	telly we share what we've been watching
0:14.0	Cladie Aide.
0:16.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
0:19.0	Lovely. Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
0:21.0	And me, Natalie Cassidy, so your evenings can be a little less
0:24.9	searching and a lot more auction listen on BBC sounds just before this
0:30.3	BBC podcast gets underway here's something you may not know.
0:34.4	My name's Linda Davies and I commission podcast for BBC Sounds.
0:38.3	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely
0:46.0	engaging voices. What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:54.2	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories.
0:57.6	And that's just a few examples.
0:59.4	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
1:07.0	Choosing what to watch. Night after night. The flicking through. The endless searching is a nightmare.
1:14.0	We want to help you.
1:16.0	On our brand new podcast off the telly we share what we've been watching.
1:20.0	Cladie Aidea!
1:22.0	Load to games, loads of fun, loads of screaming.
1:24.5	Lovely.
1:25.5	Off the telly with me Joanna Paige.
	...

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