Passageway West
My Escape From East Germany
by
Book Details
About the Book
Passageway West vividly describes the authentic memoirs of a young German girl born in the former East Germany just prior to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.
She lived through the nightmare of Hitler’s attempt to decimate her family in World War II, the Russian occupation, and the depravity of East German Secret Police (STASI). It depicts her early indoctrination into the Olympic training program forced upon all promising young athletes living in East Germany at the time.
She describes her dysfunctional family relationships, as her mother, eventually jailed by the STASI for black marketeering, seduces both her boyfriend and her sister’s fiancé. Meanwhile, her father, a German army officer, is engaged in an affair with the wife of a wealthy shipping magnate.
Her Olympic training competition takes her to West Berlin where she first becomes exposed to a world without the insidious Stasi informers. This revelation inspires her to later put her trust in a mercenary who guides her on a treacherous midnight crawl through the minefields and armed watchtowers manned by Russian guards separating East and West Germany.
About the Author
David Bloomfield is an ex-US army officer stationed in Germany between 1957 and 1959, where he gathered the material for this book. Having married the central female character he became thoroughly familiar with the circumstances surrounding the Russian occupation of East Germany and the events leading up to his wife’s escape. Mr. Bloomfield is currently a retired business executive living in Michigan.