Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Karl Otto Kagel, born in 1942, was born in Greifswald, where he also attended school and studied medicine. As a specialist in surgery and radiology, he worked as a university lecturer at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald until 1988. In August 1988, he and his family made a spectacular escape to the West. In "Geschenksendung, keine Handelsware," he describes with unusual openness life, experiences, and survival in socialist everyday life, as well as his personal experience of the turning point. The life curves of a refugee over the course of two decades of German unity are vividly outlined.