Life or Death

by Larry Verstraete

  To avoid detection, the men stuck false panels painted to look like the original grill work over the vent openings. By draping a towel over the sink or dangling a pair of pants off a faucet, they hid the chipped concrete and its false panel.

  It was one thing to break out of the cell. It was another to make it off the island. An article in a Popular Mechanics magazine spawned a solution to the problem. Using a method outlined in the article, the men built a raft from 50 green, prison-issued raincoats cut and glued together. Frank Morris modified an accordion-like instrument called a concertina and made a pump to inflate the vessel. West carved oars from plywood smuggled out of the maintenance shed. He also made inflatable life vests from raincoats, one for each of them.

  To fool the guards, who made nightly head counts, the Anglin brothers crafted dummy heads out of soap and toilet paper. Topped with hair clippings swept off the barbershop floor and coated with flesh-tone paint stolen from prison art kits, the heads looked realistic enough to pass inspection.

  After nine months each man had cut through the wall of his cell, providing access to the utility corridor. The blades and motor of a fan inside a ventilation shaft had been removed, opening a passage to the roof. The life vests, dummy heads, raft and oars waited, hidden on the roof above the utility corridor.

  After lights-out on June 11, 1962, Morris squeezed through the ventilation hole and retrieved a dummy head. The Anglin brothers did the same. They tucked the heads under blankets fluffed with clothes to resemble bodies and then re-entered the corridor. The three men waited for West. The prison ran a tight schedule and time was everything that night. Where was he?

  West had encountered a problem. Days before, his false grill had begun to slip. To hold the grill in place, he had used cement. The cement had set. While the others waited, he frantically chipped at the wall, but the grill stayed fixed in place. Escape was now impossible.

  The others waited in the corridor as long as they dared. Finally they abandoned West. In the dark, the three climbed plumbing pipes to reach a small landing. They squeezed through a ventilation shaft that led to the roof and scrambled across 30 metres of rooftop. One by one they slithered down a vertical pipe that ran along the wall to the ground. Lugging the raft and life vests, the three skirted past water tanks, wound down a hill to the east side of the rocky island and headed to the water’s edge.

  The next morning a guard noticed something peculiar. One of the inmates refused to stir. Alarmed, the guard summoned Bill Long, the supervisor. Long stormed down the corridor to the prisoner’s cell. It was a moment he never forgot.

  “I reached my left hand through the bars and hit the pillow and hollered ‘Get up for count!’” he told a reporter years later. “Bam, the head flopped off on the floor. They said I jumped back four feet from the bars.”

  The prison supervisor sounded the alarm, setting off a desperate manhunt. From prison rooftop to rocky shore, guards searched every corner of the island. Boats scoured the bay and San Francisco police watched streets and highways, looking for signs of the prisoners or the route they might have taken.

  Neither the escaped prisoners nor their bodies were ever found. The only tangible evidence discovered was the chiselled openings in the cells, the dummy heads hidden in the beds, a wooden paddle recovered from a nearby island and three vests found in various places — one in the bay, one in the ocean and another on the prison roof.

  Afterward, Alcatraz was never quite the same. Loopholes in security were tightened to prevent such escapes in the future. And while Alcatraz the prison is no longer operational, Alcatraz the tourist attraction is. On guided tours, visitors to The Rock peer into the cells of the four infamous prisoners, intrigued by the complexity of their escape.

  Did the inmates make it or die trying? The FBI file is still open and active, pending further information.

  19.

  THE BROTHERS THREE

  Ingo Bethke missed his two brothers. And that led to even more clever and dangerous escapes.

  Darkness shrouded the Elbe River. For twenty-one-year-old Ingo Bethke, the river was like an old friend beckoning him. For months he had studied the Elbe. He knew the river’s twists and turns, the positions of watchtowers along its east bank, the places that were guarded and those that were not. He’d come this far. There would be no turning back.

  The Elbe snaked across northern Germany, part of the highly protected border that from 1961 to 1990 cut across the country, preventing citizens in communist East Germany from crossing into democratically run West Germany. The Inner German Border, a 1381-kilometre-long system of protective fences, barbed wire and watchtowers, separated the two countries. The Berlin Wall added another 155 kilometres of heavily guarded border. Many East Germans attempted to escape to West Germany across one of these barriers. Some succeeded. Many were captured. Others died, shot down while trying.

  Workers embed pieces of broken glass atop the Berlin Wall to keep East Berliners from escaping.

  That night in May 1975, Ingo stood on the bank of the Elbe in East Germany. He gazed at lights glimmering in West Germany only 150 metres away. A friend stood beside him, another young man who had heard the call of freedom and was prepared to risk everything.

  The two had rented a car and driven 80 kilometres north of East Berlin to this remote and isolated place along the river. A metal fence ran alongside the Elbe there. It was topped with razor wire, protected by land mines and rigged with trip wires that activated floodlights and alerted armed guards. After months of studying this place, Ingo decided it was where their chances would be best.

  Taking advantage of the dark, the two men abandoned the car. They tiptoed across a strip of sand planted with mines, sneaked through the fence — careful not to trigger alarms — and crept down to the water’s edge.

  The Elbe was the last obstacle in their way, the point of no return in their plan. The two friends blew up air mattresses they carried. They slid them into the Elbe and climbed aboard. Paddling in silence, they crossed the river, leaving families and possessions behind to begin new lives on the West German side.

  As a hunted man, Ingo knew that he could never return to East Germany, and while freedom brought him better jobs and greater opportunities, it came with a price. He missed his two younger brothers, Holger and Egbert. As it turned out, his brothers missed him, too. And that led to escapes even more clever and dangerous.

  * * *

  For eight years Ingo and his brothers kept in touch with secret phone calls and coded messages. With him gone, life grew more complicated for Holger and Egbert. They were questioned by the East German police and followed everywhere. Privileges were withdrawn; any chance for better jobs or higher pay quashed. Over time, security was tightened all along the border, especially along the Berlin Wall, where guards patrolled day and night, armed and ready.

  In 1983 Michael Becker, a friend of Holger’s who had similar dreams of escape, spotted an article in a smuggled West German magazine that described daring escapes over the Berlin Wall. One captured his attention — a family who had used cables, pulleys and a harness to slide to the West German side.

  Michael shared his idea with Holger. “I told him I had a plan with an eighty per cent chance of working. His eyes lit up and he said: ‘Count me in. I’m with you.’”

  To start, Michael ordered wooden rollers from a carpentry shop. They were 15 centimetres in diameter, 2.5 centimetres thick and had a deep groove running down the middle. Then he obtained 90 metres of steel cable from a friend who worked at a crane-making factory.

  Holger and Michael rented a car and drove along part of the Berlin Wall which separated East and West Berlin, looking for a proper site. At the intersection of two streets, Holger spotted a five-storey housing complex that faced a row of four-storey apartment buildings in West Berlin.

  “We inspected the inside of the house,” Michael said. “Dressed in overalls as repairmen, we went up to the attic — which Holger opened with a skeleton key — made ske
tches, checked to see that the chimney was big and solid and that the little skylight windows on the roof were big enough for us. It was all perfect.”

  Next they looked for a place to practise. In a public park on the edge of the city, they attached one end of the steel cable to a tree about 7 metres above ground, wrapped it around another tree at a height of 5 metres and then secured the tail end to the bumper of their car. For two weeks the pair ran drills in broad daylight. Pulled by gravity, they scooted down the zip line, riding the cable by hanging on to the wooden rollers. When people asked questions, they answered, “We’re training for the circus.”

  They found a bow and arrow, a key piece of equipment for their plan. They set up targets in a meadow near Soviet headquarters, where Holger shot arrow after arrow, gaining confidence and accuracy.

  To make the plan work, they needed someone on the West Berlin side. Holger sent Ingo letters with fake return addresses. Will you help? he asked. Ingo agreed. They set a date for their escape — March 30, Holger’s birthday.

  That afternoon Holger said goodbye to Egbert, the only other person besides his older brother who knew of their plan. Pretending to be electricians, Holger and Michael snuck into the apartment block in East Berlin. Lugging wires, cables, fishing line, a walkie-talkie, blankets, sandwiches, the bow and four arrows, and an electrician’s tool kit, they trudged up five flights of stairs to the attic. To reduce noise they padded their shoes with foam.

  “We’re training for the circus.”

  They waited. The sun dipped over the horizon, stars appeared and coolness settled over the city. One by one, nearby apartments fell silent. At 3:00 a.m. they switched on the walkie-talkie. A familiar voice crackled over the airway. “Ich bin hier — I’m here. Are you ready?” It was Ingo, positioned in the building on the other side of the Berlin Wall.

  Holger attached fishing line to an arrow, leaned out the skylight window and with directions provided by Ingo over the walkie-talkie, took aim at the West Berlin apartment. The first shot ran wild and landed in a tree. The second ended up on the roof of another building, fishing line trailing after it. A third arrow spiralled into a courtyard behind. While Ingo searched for it, Holger clung to the only arrow left — his last chance at freedom if Ingo failed to find the other arrow.

  After an hour and a half of searching, Ingo spotted the arrow in a tall bush. He reeled in the fishing line, then a thicker cord attached to it and finally the steel cable. Holger tied his end around the brick chimney. Ingo secured his to the balcony of the apartment, and the rest to his car. To pull the cable tight, he drove forward.

  Holger tied a rope around his waist and fastened it to the wooden roller. After making sure that a guard in a nearby watchtower was distracted, Holger zipped down the cable, soaring 20 metres above the street and over the Berlin Wall to Ingo, who was waiting on the balcony of the apartment on other side. It took a mere ten seconds. After unhooking himself, Holger called Michael over.

  Reunited in West Berlin, the brothers hugged and rejoiced. Their joy, though, was tempered with regret. Egbert was still trapped in East Berlin.

  * * *

  With his two brothers gone, Egbert was followed closely by East German police. They tapped his phone, intercepted his mail and grilled friends and neighbours with questions. Once they offered him a free ticket to the West. It was a trap, a test of Egbert’s loyalty, and Egbert knew it. He turned down the offer. “I like East Germany and I’m staying,” he told them. Meanwhile his dream of escape grew.

  In Cologne, West Germany, Ingo and Holger bought a bar and settled into life as business partners. Egbert was in their thoughts, though. How could they get their brother over the border?

  One day in 1985, while attending a fair, Ingo and Holger bumped into two French pilots who told them about a tiny two-person aircraft called an ultralight. Fascinated, the brothers travelled to France to try one. The plane was flimsy and simple — 10-metre-long wings attached to a superlight, 2-metre metal frame; an open cockpit with two seats side by side; a small engine for power; two tiny wheels for takeoff and landing. Made for easy transport, the whole plane could be dismantled, packed into a trailer, hauled to a new location and reassembled.

  “This is it,” Ingo told Holger.

  An ultralight aircraft might be the brothers’ only hope of bringing Egbert home.

  The brothers sold their bar and bought two ultralights with the money. Ingo took flying lessons. Afterward he taught Holger what he knew. They practised, assembling their machines, taking them apart and flying whenever they could. They would have only one chance. Success, and the lives of all three, depended on skill and perfect timing.

  In May 1989, after four years of preparation, Ingo and Holger drove to West Berlin. They sent a coded message to Egbert: Ulricke is doing well. Egbert knew the meaning: Be ready. We’re coming.

  At midnight on May 25 the wind was soft, the sky clear. In a park in West Berlin, Ingo and Holger unloaded their ultralights and assembled the pieces. To confuse border guards, they had painted a Soviet star on the tail of each plane.

  After checking wires and gauges, they donned flight suits and helmets equipped with radios. Meanwhile, 6 kilometres away in East Berlin, Egbert crept behind bushes in Treptower Park, a stone’s throw from the Berlin Wall, a radio transmitter in his hand.

  Just after 4:00 a.m. Ingo and Holger started their engines and rolled into position. In minutes they were aloft and zooming over the Berlin Wall. Soon Treptower Park soared into view.

  “Are you there?” Ingo said over his radio.

  “Yes, I am,” Egbert radioed back.

  Holger circled above, ready to help if problems arose while Ingo descended to scoop up Egbert. The moment the plane touched down, Egbert ran from the bushes and jumped into the empty seat. Ingo handed his brother a helmet, flashed a smile of welcome and gunned the engine.

  With an extra person on board, liftoff was slow, but finally they cleared the trees that ringed the park. Eleven minutes and two seconds from the start of the operation, the two planes were back in West Berlin, three brothers free and reunited.

  “I thought I’d never see my brothers again,” Egbert said. “But they came out of the sky like angels and took me to paradise.”

  OUTSMARTING THE IMPOSSIBLE

  October, 1964 / Berlin, Germany

  In April 1964, under the leadership of Wolfgang Fuchs, a twenty-five-year-old optician, thirty students from the Free University of Berlin began digging a tunnel under the Berlin Wall. Their goal was simple — construct an escape route for students, friends and family members who were trapped in East Berlin.

  While lookouts kept watch from surrounding rooftops, the students wielded shovels and pickaxes. They started in an abandoned West Berlin bakery at 97 Bernauer Street. Progress was slow but steady. Six months later they broke through to the other side — the courtyard of an unused building in East Berlin.

  The first night twenty-nine people, at ten-minute intervals, squeezed through the 90-centimetre-high tunnel, crawling on their hands and knees for 145 metres. The next night, twenty-eight more escaped.

  “The marks of their knee prints in the tunnel floor looked like the ripples on a beach left behind by the receding tide,” Fuchs said. “I will never forget that. That is beautiful.”

  Unfortunately, the tunnel was discovered by East Berlin police shortly after, rendering other escapes impossible. Nevertheless, fifty-seven refugees — including ten children — crawled through what became known as Tunnel 57, the longest and deepest tunnel ever constructed under the Berlin Wall.

  20.

  NOW OR NEVER

  Only a fence stood between Shin In Geun and freedom.

  The snow was heavy and deep on the mountain slope where Shin In Geun stood. The air was crisp; the sun bright in the cloudless sky. A cold January wind blew across the forest, but otherwise conditions were perfect for the work he and other prisoners had been assigned — trimming trees and stacking firewood on the northern edge of
Camp 14, a political prison in North Korea.

  From his place on the slope, Shin watched the guard tower 400 metres away. It marked the outer limits of a 3-metre-high electrified fence that ran around the camp. Guards armed with automatic weapons patrolled the perimeter, halting any attempts to escape.

  No one had ever escaped Camp 14. A number tried, but none succeeded. In the camp, prisoners had been brainwashed to spy on each other. Torture and execution awaited those who failed to inform on their neighbours. Those who dreamed of escape were caught long before they reached the fence.

  But Shin had a plan, and that day on the mountain, escape beckoned him. Timing was everything. It was now or never.

  * * *

  Camp 14 lies in the middle of North Korea. It cuts a swath about 48 kilometres long and 24 kilometres wide along a steep mountain valley. Around fifteen thousand people live at Camp 14. No one knows the exact number because North Korea is a military-run country ruled by a dictator. Information is heavily guarded and controlled.

  North Korean soldiers march past Kim Il Sung Square during a mass military parade.

  In North Korea, citizens have few rights. Those who oppose the government often disappear. Many end up in slave-labour camps, places like Camp 14 where they toil for the rest of their lives at back-breaking tasks, never to taste freedom.

  Shin In Geun knew no other life than Camp 14. He had been born and raised there, the child of parents who were political prisoners. The guards were his keepers and teachers, and almost daily Shin received stern lectures. His parents had sinned against the government, Shin was told, and he had to pay for their sins.