stamp 202511212207
The Iron Curtain as a wide-range border protection set, had a big role in my family’s life.
My father and aunt grew up in a gated community, on a farmstead being so close to the border that it was under military control. They have fond memories of growing up in such a close-knit community.
They also have a lot of funny commute stories between the Nyugati Major (the farmstead) and the near town of Sopron (where I was born). And of course a couple deserter stories.
Related
- My dad just shared with me today how people from Hungary always tried to flee to the West, while Austrian dogs crossed the border to visit female dogs in heat in the farmstead. :)
- My mom needed to go through inspection every time she wanted to visit my dad and his family, as she wasn’t a permanent tenant of the farmstead so she didn’t have a commute permit.
- She shared the story of one time visiting his boyfriend, my dad (already pregnant with me, not married yet). The soldier younger than my mom asked for the purpose of the visit. “I looked at him and I thought, if I told you the real purpose of my visit, you would feel really, really embarrassed, pal.”
- My mom’s parents also have a cool backstory of how they moved to Sopron, from the other direction, just a bit East. 3f1a1a-the-suburbia-where-i-grew-up-was-like-a-little-village-created-by-farmer-families-transforming-bomb-craters
- My dad with his sister and me with my sister had some similarities in our childhood circumstances. 3f1a1b-both-my-dad-and-i-grew-up-in-warm-and-close-knit-communities-built-on-the-legacy-of-world-war-ii