Ursula Schmidt (in white) and daughter Sabine Masing talk at their home in eastern Berlin. Ursula organized for Sabine to be smuggled out of East Germany in 1973. (Penny Bradfield)

How the wall still divides one family

While the Schmidts were able to escape East Germany, it had a profound impact on their lives.

By David Wroe — Special to GlobalPost
Published: November 5, 2009 09:59 ET

BERLIN, Germany — One cold day in November 1973, Sabine Masing climbed into the trunk of a car with her father and sister along a lonely stretch of autobahn in communist East Germany.
Her mother had arranged the escape attempt while on a week-long travel permit to West Berlin, where she was now waiting anxiously.

“We were so tense,” Masing, then 13, recalls....

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