Quoted from wellarmed:Nine Months behind the iron curtain for trying to leave east Germany to live in freedom.
I honestly got a tear in my eye reading this post. People with your background have my utmost respect; you guys endured hardships many of us can scarcely conceive, and are an ongoing source of inspiration.
I was born and bred in the USA and never lived under the tyranny you experienced; the freedom and peace of mind I’ve enjoyed my entire life was only possible because of the immense sacrifice and hardship endured by my ancestors.
You overcame similar, and probably worse, adversity (I’m sure the time behind bars is just the “tip of the iceberg”), but know that your tenacity could potentially pay great dividends for many generations of your descendants to come!
Also, if you enjoy modern Classical music I would HIGHLY recommend the music of Arvo Pärt if you haven’t already discovered him; he has a similar background as yourself (fled religious and other discrimination in Soviet Estonia to W. Berlin, with all the hardship that entailed), and composes deeply emotional and spiritual pieces in a minimalist style where the silence between the notes is just as expressive as the notes themselves. A good place to start is with the ECM releases “Tabula Rasa” and “Alina” (both readily streamable); this is some if the most astonishingly moving and spiritual (NOT religious!) music I have ever heard, and both of those albums bring me to tears, even after hearing them dozens of times.