The picnic that changed Europe

Tens of thousands of East Germans — who could travel to Hungary without a visa — flooded into the country in August 1989, hoping to find a clear path west without passing through the minefields and barbed wire separating their country from West Germany. (Tamas Lobenwein)

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SOPRONKOHIDA, Hungary — Race north on the newly paved country lane from this Hungarian village, past cornfields and patches of woods, and you might miss the Austrian border altogether.

The old border between East and West is now just a seam in the asphalt next to a bike path crossing. There are no signs marking the spot, just a modest statue of a half-open door commemorating the historic events of Aug. 19, 1989, which helped bring down the Berlin Wall three months later.

Back then there was no missing the border, then part of the “Iron Curtain” that separated Western Europe from the Soviet-controlled East. Barbed-wire fences cut across fields under the shadows of watchtowers and a locked metal-and-timber gate blocked the dirt road, which had been barricaded since 1948. Twenty years ago Wednesday, Hungarian Border Guard Arpad Bella was standing in front of that gate in his summer uniform, pistol at his side, awaiting the arrival of a special delegation of Austrian visitors. It was an unusual event, but it was an unusual time.

Hungary had started dismantling parts of its western border fortifications that spring, sending shockwaves through the nations of the Eastern Bloc. Tens of thousands of East Germans — who could travel to Hungary without a visa — flooded into the country, hoping to find a clear path west without passing through the minefields and barbed wire separating their country from West Germany. Bella’s men had been told to be on the lookout.

Meanwhile, reformers within Hungary’s Communist Party had given local democracy activists permission to organize a symbolic event on the border — a “pan-European picnic” in which they would share food, wine and declarations of cooperation with their Austrian neighbors. With foreign press in attendance, a joint delegation would cross the border. The gate was to be locked again at 6 p.m.

It didn’t turn out that way.

A little before three, Bella saw a large mass of people approaching his side of the gate, which he initially took to be the Hungarian delegation. But people in the crowd were approaching in silence, carrying children, pets and rucksacks of belongings. They were East German tourists desperate to escape to the West. They quickened their pace as they drew closer to Bella.

“I didn’t have much time to decide what to do,” Bella recalled 20 years later. “If I tried to stop the East Germans there would be blood. If I decided not to, I would be violating my orders.”

In those moments, Bella came to a history-changing decision. “At that moment of decision I put aside the Border Guard and let my own personality come out,” he said. “These people weren’t the enemy, they were civilians without weapons, and if I tried to stop them, people — including my men — would be hurt or killed and we still wouldn’t succeed.”

His order: “Please, go through.”

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/europe/090818/iron-curtain-1989-austria-hungary-border