BORDER CZECHSInventive Methods Used to Escape the Iron Curtain
BY PAVEL CEJKA AND TOMAS ZILVAR
PHOTOS COURTESY OF THE SECURITY SERVICES ARCHIVE, POLICE MUSEUM PRAGUE ARCHIVE
TRANSLATED BY MATTHEW BLOOD-SMYTH
After Joseph Stalin and the Red Army drove the Nazis out of Eastern Europe, the continent was left with ill-defined borders and new ideas about who was running shit. Things had to be sorted out, so leaders from the US, USSR, and UK convened at the 1945 Potsdam Conference in Germany to decide how the host country would be punished for its sins.
After much handwringing and deliberation, it was concluded that the USSR would take control of the territories buttressing its border, while most Western European nations joined together to form NATO. And presto: The Iron Curtain was hung. Over the following years, the Soviets erected hundreds of miles of high-voltage barbed wire and dispatched approximately 20,000 soldiers to guard their imposing mega-border. It was a very shitty time for Eastern-bloc inhabitants, who knew much about very shitty times already.
Escape was the only option for those unwilling to be confined to Communist rule. And there was no time to waste—the Iron Curtain grew increasingly impregnable with each passing year. By 1948, searchlights were installed, and shortly after that, barbed-wire barricades, electric fences, mines, and other death traps were scattered across every conceivable point of exit like arsenic sprinkles on a death cupcake. Still, more than 150,000 Czechoslovakians and other nationalities decided fleeing was worth the risk.
Ivo Pejcvoch of Prague’s Military History Institute and author of the obscure Heroes of the Iron Curtain cites specialized carriages, horses, sleds, stilts, hang gliders, and even balloons as means of escape employed by enterprising Czechs. Few were successful, but Ivo told us, “It is important that we remind the young what sort of face Europe had before it was possible to move about in her freely.” We agreed. So in honor of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain, here are some the ingenious and less-than-ingenious ways a few brave Czechs parted the red drapes.
See all articles by this contributor
| MtShasta, on Oct 19, 2009 wrote:
I remember talking to the tank inventor Václav Uhlík in 1969 near Fresno, CA. He was taken advantage of from corporate America and he was soon disillusioned with the American government. The US government thought he had antigravity information and kept pestering him to reveal it. Václav said he was building an antigravity device up near the tiny town of Miramonte but I never was up there or saw it. I think he was a genus and a great inventor. His son probably was given those secrets but I don’t know what happened to him. Several years later the Fresno Bee newspaper ran an article about him beaten to death in a vacant field. | | Anonymous, on Sep 22, 2009 wrote:
wot about the millions that didnt want to escape? | | Anonymous, on Sep 18, 2009 wrote:
Impressing. Pure creativity only comes out when you really have a big fucking problem...like a iron curtain. | | Anonymous, on Sep 8, 2009 wrote:
Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up. | |
| duck duck goose, on Sep 8, 2009 wrote:
i bet he got hung up and then had thirty bullet holes within a matter of minutes. | | Anonymous, on Sep 8, 2009 wrote:
wow, its crazy the ways they came up with to get out of the country. shows just how bad things were. | | Anonymous, on Sep 8, 2009 wrote:
@ lazy eyez killa
i really hope so | |
| dangerboy, on Sep 8, 2009 wrote:
the freedom tank is badass | |
| kennyp, on Sep 8, 2009 wrote:
how did he even get that far? ouch. | | Anonymous, on Sep 8, 2009 wrote:
wow that looks painful. dude mustve been in a real rush to get out of there. | | Anonymous, on Sep 8, 2009 wrote:
You know what really would have sucked? You escape communism. Then, they keep taking land and you escape again. Then again. And again and again. | | Anonymous, on Sep 8, 2009 wrote:
if you’re going to go down, go down in style, striped socks and all. | | Anonymous, on Sep 8, 2009 wrote:
If you have unprotected sex, this is what happens to your dick. Beware, kids. Strap it up. | | Anonymous, on Sep 8, 2009 wrote:
he needed to do some catherine zeta jones shit and karate dance his way through that shit. | |
| lazy eyez killa, on Sep 8, 2009 wrote:
i hope for his sake that man is already dead. | | Anonymous, on Sep 1, 2009 wrote:
we have access to thousands of computers | |
| catbird, on Aug 31, 2009 wrote:
It’s so frightening to think that all of this was not even so long ago | | Anonymous, on Aug 28, 2009 wrote:
how did he even get that twisted up!? | | Anonymous, on Aug 28, 2009 wrote:
scumnation says ’Anti Russian propaganda.’ | | Anonymous, on Aug 28, 2009 wrote:
balls | |
| Grant, on Aug 26, 2009 wrote:
I’ve seen pictures like this before and it makes me wonder if they didn’t have access to wirecutters. Why would you attempt this without them? | | Anonymous, on Aug 25, 2009 wrote:
Once you lose your shoe, your odds of hurdling the barbed wire go down severely. | | Anonymous, on Aug 25, 2009 wrote:
Funny, but wrong. They didn’t exactly have leisure wear back then. | |
| malathion, on Aug 24, 2009 wrote:
that dude actually put on a suit to crawl over that fence . i guess it was a special occasion kinda thing . | | Anonymous, on Aug 24, 2009 wrote:
I interviewed a holocaust survivor in highschool for a project and he actually jumped out of a moving train headed for auschwitz and escaped!! | |
| thedon, on Aug 21, 2009 wrote:
that first picture is just painful to look at | |
| foxface, on Aug 20, 2009 wrote:
there is only one thing that must be going through the guy in the first pictures head, a bullet | | Anonymous, on Aug 19, 2009 wrote:
damn! boogie boarding down the train tracks. sparks must have been flying all over them. | | Anonymous, on Aug 18, 2009 wrote:
damn imagine hanging on hte bototm of hte train while its chugging along. terrifying. | | |
| thedon, on Aug 18, 2009 wrote:
holy shit that looks painful | | | Next 30 comments > |
| |
