Word: vopos
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...accessible during four holiday seasons each year under the pass agreements negotiated last September. Young and old lugged huge baskets filled with fruits, candies, coffee, tea, sugar and liquors-all in short, or ersatz, supply in Communist East Germany. On the Western side accumulated intended gifts that the surly Vopo guards would not allow through: books, records, TV equipment, film, photographs of any kind-even color slides of family outings...
...breathe. Again and again the tunnel threatened to cave in because of Berlin's sandy soil. Several times, seepage from underground mains almost forced them to abandon the project. But they kept digging. They installed a ventilation system, used walkie-talkies to warn of the approach of Red Vopo patrols. At the West Berlin entrance to the tunnel they put up a sign that read: "Walter, we're coming," and 70 ft. further along, where the tunnel passed under the Berlin Wall, they erected another: "You are now leaving the French Sector...
...pretending that they and some friends wanted to join the great escape. The "friends" turned out to be Communist cops who had been tipped off by informers. Four of the diggers who had guarded the tunnel entrance managed to get back to West Berlin-after shooting one East German Vopo sergeant...
Berliners are forever finding new ways to frustrate Communist rules and punch holes in the ugly Red Wall. The latest stunt is a lot more expensive than leaping over barbed wire but a lot safer than dodging Vopo bullets. All it takes is a holiday train ticket to another Iron Curtain country...
...just before dark on Christmas Day, two 18-year-old East Germans made a break for the Wall. As the boys scrambled over the barbed wire, searchlights blazed and flares burst. A pizzicato of burp guns played brief counterpoint to Bing Crosby's White Christmas. Lungs shredded by Vopo bullets, Electrician's Apprentice...