Excited and full of anticipation, we looked towards the future back then! Join us in reminiscing about the first 18 years of life - your childhood and youth! Born in 1939, we grew up during the war and post-war period and came of age in the young, emerging GDR. However, it is not so much the horrors and hardships of the 1940s that we "war children" first remember, but rather the games of our childhood, the first friendships at school, and the shared activities. The political conditions in the GDR brought certain peculiarities to our development, including being Pioneers and members of the FDJ. Yet, we looked confidently towards the future.