Excited and expectant, that's how we looked into the future back then! Join us in reminiscing about the first 18 years of your life, your childhood and youth! Born in 1935, we were children in vests and lederhosen, with marble bags or scooters in the German Reich, which was preparing for war. School days included primers and canes, just like air raid shelters, the wailing of sirens, and a constantly rumbling stomach. Peace brings new teachers, accommodations, and some fathers back home. In the Soviet-occupied zone, we grow up amidst the rubble into our youth, just as the new state of East Germany begins with collectivization and the first blue shirts.