Lenzen (Elbe) - area where Peter Kusel lives near Bäkern

Lenzen

The "Iron Curtain" started out as a political boundary created by the USSR in 1945, and then in 1961 the GDR & Soviets built the wall in Berlin and much broader fence across Germany.
This wall/fencing was NOT built to keep people from the West out of Eastern Europe, BUT to keep the citizens of East Germany from fleeing socialism, communism, and the horrible living conditions it created.

It was sometime before or maybe during the construction of the wall/fencing that Peter and his family fled to West Germany.

Guard towers were spaced along the fence.
This is one of the towers Peter saw when he returned to his home in 1990.

View of the landscape in the area - lots of open land which made it difficult to sneak through and try to scale the fence.

This is the gravesite where Peter Kusel's parents and other relatives were buried.
I asked Peter why there were not tombstones, headstones, or monuments.
He then shocked me and proceeded to tell me that the GDR (German Democratic Republic) and USSR (Union of Soviet Socialists Republics) socialists removed the tombstones and either buried them or crushed them and used them to gravel roads.

Peter Kusel telling how the socialists/communists desecrated as many gravesites they could find, with the objective to destroy historical records, destroy Christianity, and anything that was part of the previous society.

Remember that many of the people who came into power in the GDR after WWII were the German citizens and neighbors who lived among those they were now oppressing.