ROSES BEHIND THE IRON CERTAIN

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32460, 21 November 1970, Page 11

ROSES BEHIND THE IRON CERTAIN

(By

JESSIE MOULD)

It is not difficult for a New Zealander to penetrate the Iron Curtain which hangs between West and East Germany, providing one does not bear a German name and has never held German nationality. The British Consulate at Frankfurt advises one not to attempt crossing the border unless in possession of a visa, but the D.D.R. is able to issue these at the appointed entrance - exit points and the precautionary advice is probably given so that full responsibility rests with the traveller. Although particulars of persons preparing to enter East Germany are left with the consulate and the visitor reports back on return, there is the distinct impression that should he not return, very little could be done about it. One is responsible for one’s own safety. Tourists are welcome in East Germany. The German Democratic Republic has much to attract visitors—seaside resorts along the sandy Baltic coast; the islands of Rugen and Usedon; the hiking and boating area of Mecklenburg; the mountains of the Thuringian forest; the massive hills and coloured stalactite caves, wrapped In legend, of the Harz; the sandstone mountains of Saxon Switzerland; winter sports of Erzgebirge; palaces and parks at Sanssouci and Moritzburg; musical festivals at Halle (home of Handel) and the International Horticultural Exhibition at Erfurt. Art, music, history, horticulture, sport, health resorts and healing spas—the G.D.R. has them all and is prepared to share them with the rest of the world. Road tolls Before entering the G.D.R. it is essential to be in possession of a valid passport and it is advisable to obtain beforehand a travel agent’s hotel or camping vouchers. It is possible to obtain a visa from a travel agency or the Reiseburo of D.D.R. at East Berlin, but this may also be obtained at the frontier or on the train before entering the G.D.R. Visas cost approximately SNZ3 and the traveller using his own motor vehicle must pay a road toll of approximately SNZI per 200 kilometres. A third party insurance is also compulsory and can be taken out at the frontier. Green cards are not acceptable. Ownership papers and driver’s licence must be produced and the insurance rate is a little over SNZI for transit and $2.50 for seven days. Speed limits on the autobahn are 100 k.p.h., in built up areas 50 k.p.h. and on other roads outside built up areas, 90 k.p.h. Camping vouchers may be obtained from the appointed travel agents or at the Reiseburo Service Bureaux at the G.D.R. frontier, at the rate of SNZ2.SO a person. Children under six years are free. These vouchers will be exchanged for G.D.R. currency (12.00 marks) a day at the frontier and will pay for camping and parking fees. At the frontier visitors must state which camping sites or hotels they intend using and must report to district police on arrival at first site or hotel and advise the police of .the names of all further sites or hotels they intend using during their stay in the G.D.R. All camping sites have electricity, water and sanitation and are reasonably close to shops and restaurants. They are open from mid-May until midSeptember. Frontier control Customs and currency declaration forms and frontier control cards must be completed at the frontier. On entry, currency must be exchanged for G.D.R. marks at the frontier as no G.D.R. currency may be brought into or taken out of the country. This also means that excess G.D.R. marks must be reconverted at branches of the Deutsche Notenmank as, on exit, no exchange can be made at the rail or road frontier crossing points. Excess G.D.R. marks must be placed in a Red Cross box. There is no restriction on photography in the G.D.R. except in the region of State frontiers, railway stations, barracks and other defence establishments. Tape recorders may be taken into the G.D.R. together with blank tapes for recording purposes, but used tapes may not be imported. Three New Zealanders who recently ventured behind the Iron Curtain found that it took almost two hours each time to cross the frontier with barriers for passport inspection, visits to the Reiseburo for visas and camping vouchers, visits to the bank for currency exchange and customs inspection, then more passport inspection. It was about 7 a.m. on a Sunday and, although the roads and countryside were deserted, except for the frontier which is manned night and day, the travellers appeared to drive on tiptoe. They breathed on tiptoe and even thought on tiptoe, but as the countryside changed from desolate ground cleared of forest for military exercises, and softened into farmlands and quiet roads edged by single rows of cherry and plum trees, the tension lessened and they stopped a while to breakfast near a

cornfield bread rolls with sausagemeat and applejuice. The difference in the two German states was marked.' , e es t is prosperous, clean, tidy and happy while the East appears backward, neglected, drab, and, maybe, with an undercurrent of discontent. True, the young people appear happy and the accent is on youth, but farms are worked collectively and are not individually owned; religion is not forbidden, but the child with a Christian home' and upbringing is frowned on by his fellows and, when of age, may not take his oath to the State and, because of that, may not pass on to the gymnasium (college). Statues of Lenin in village corners are surrounded by flags and flowers. Villages are dusty and drab with few shop windows and the buildings are sadly in need of repair. Women work in the fields, hoeing and haymaking, even the very elderly, dressed entirely in black. Maybe they are not as elderly in years as they look. They are aged with hard work, with worry and with sorrow. Oxen and horses are still used, although not extensively. Young barefooted girls carry pails of water from the village pump. Vegetables are grown in allotments and many such small gardens are brightened by' a few paeonies or a pathetic strip of Sweet William presumably grown for picking for the house.

Sangerhausen was the goal of the New Zealand travellers Sangerhausen at the foot of the Lower Harz mountains, historically famous and within sight of conical slack heaps from copper mines, and not too distant from Halle, the birthplace of Handel, where his music is still played and enjoyed. The town of Sangerhausen appeared drab and colourless maybe it is 1000 years old like the city of Quedlinburg but it is no wonder that visitors come by the busload as well as on foot to visit the famous rose garden owned by the town an oasis of beauty in a shabby, sepia toned environment. Sangerhausen Rosarium, which covers 31 acres, claims to contain the largest collection of roses in the world and it may be so: 6000 varieties, of which 800 are species. The roses, growing in a parkland setting, among tall conifers and deciduous trees, form, in a most attractive manner, individual little gardens in the large rosarium. It is thus a joy to a lover of beauty as well as an education to the botanist. Modem roses, hybrid teas and floribundas are grown in a formal setting oh a hillside, while, at the back of them, on a rise, are borders of shrub roses, species, climbers and ramblers grown on poles and tripods. A severe and long winter prevented them from, this year, attaining the height

and vigour of New Zealand roses of the same variety, and, in common with most roses in the United Kingdom, and on the Continent, they appear to lack water. Rare tea roses Surrounded by blue spruce, golden poplars and the ginkgo, . are beds of early teas about a foot high, the recurrent blooming hybrid perpetuals, bourbons and rugosas. The last named obviously did not mind the hard winter—so tall and colourful they grew. Ampng the early teas were roses seldom found in gardens today although most were familiar as names and as pictures in a book —Grace Darling, Madame de Watteville, Madame Antoine Mari. Grandmother’s Garden contained the early gallicas (the old French roses), centifolias (Rose of the Painters), damasks (trigintipetala—used in the manufacture of attar of roses), the albas (the White Rose of York—also used for attar) and the mosses of which the calyx, the stem and sometimes even the leaves are covered with soft green or brown pungently scented, sticky mosslike bristles. Some beds are devoted entirely to species—a long one containing different varieties of canina and another of spinosissimas, one of rosa blanda and another of rugosas. A border containing Austrian copper, Austrian yellow, rosa Harrisonii and Star of Persia was

in full bloom, making an arresting display. A tall pillar of Le Reve—a most startling yellow with a delightful fragrance, and the shrub rose, Rhodophile gravereux, resembling a pink Penzance briar, were also spectacular. Goethe’s garden is planted with the roses centifolia, blanda, rubiginosa of the variety dimorphacantha—all of which types the poet grew himself. Set amongst the trees and roses are many small statues; two are the enthusiastic founders of the rosarium, Albert Hoffman and Professor Gnau, while another depicts Goethe’s poem—-the hunter and his dog and the wild rose—behind which grows a bush of Indica major, a wild rose of China. In the evening of that hot June day, as the travellers sped again towards the frontier, villages were filled with the aroma of sausages, long, fat, juicy, German sausages, full of meat, sizzling on barbeques on the street outside the houses as families gathered for the evening meal. Tea in the garden was an impossibility, and knowing that, made the little borders of Sweet William in the allotments outside the village even more pathetic. The sun, a vivid ball of flame outlined with a deeper rim of orange, sank in the west and it was dark when the final barrier on the West German frontier swung down behind the New Zealanders.