1953: East German refugees tell of life there
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In this extract from Radio Newsreel, two East German refugees from the Russian zone in Berlin share their experiences of life there. The recordings were made before the Berlin Wall was constructed but reveal some of the restrictions and repressions felt under Soviet rule. The first features a Jewish woman who returned to Berlin after the war and joined a communist group, while the second is of a railway worker who distrusted Russian media.
On 16 June 1953, riots began in East Berlin as construction workers took to the streets protesting against increased working hours. They were quickly joined by up to 50,000 others calling for a general strike and free elections. The Soviet government reacted quickly, sending in an entire armoured division that crashed through the crowds of demonstrators, killing between 15 and 20 people. The protests spread to the rest of East Germany but were quickly repressed and a precedent was set for Soviet intervention in the later uprisings in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968).