Patrolling the Border

Kulkas

Our visit in Czechoslovakia about over, we began to drive toward the border to Germany. As I remember, the road paralleled the border quite a distance before arriving at the border crossing point. The sentry boxes spaced out one after another made it easy to know exactly where the border was.

It was a lovely day, and we were in no hurry. We had gone some distance before we saw another vehicle on the road. It was ahead of us, moving at a steady pace. As we came closer, we could see that it was an ambulance. It was not signalling with its light, nor using a siren. Its steady pace continued as we drove behind it. This seemed very strange. What would an ambulance be doing just cruising along the narrow highway for miles like that?

I was really curious, and interested in learning more about it.
Felix, on the other hand, was uneasy.

After some miles, there was a wide place in the road, and the ambulance pulled over to let us pass. I didn’t want to, but Felix left no room for doubt. We dutifully passed the vehicle and went on our way ahead of it, leaving it behind.

I think both of us began speculating that this “ambulance” was actually a border patrol,. There was no way of knowing what was actually inside it. Of course they would not want to be observed by anyone, especially foreigners. Who knows what they would have suspected us of, had there been someone trying to escape across the border?

In hind sight I can see that my reaction was so American. I had been raised in a country where the authorities gave me nothing to fear. It never occurred to me that there could be any danger in the situation.

Felix, on the other hand, grew up in a country which had suddently been overrun by Nazis. He could remember walking along the sidewalk with a friend, seeing a Nazi soldier come toward them, and suddenly having his friend’s face smashed by the butt of the soldier’s gun. He and his sister had lived through an afternoon where there was a sudden commotion on the street as they were walking together, and in fear, they ducked into a movie theater for the rest of the afternoon to stay out of harm’s way.

Felix knew better than to challenge anyone in a situation like the one we were in that day on our way out of Czxechoslovakia, and we drove on to Germany without any further incident.