Frank, Germany
Frank was 30 when the accident in Chernobyl happened. He remembers that people in East Germany were told that all foods were safe, while they saw on TV that West German farmers destroyed their whole harvest by plowing the fields. This and other memories he shared in an interview with Rebecca Hartje who is his son’s girl friend.
Family background of the time witness
Frank was born on September 6th 1955 in Stassfurt (then East Germany) as one of two twin boys. He has an older sister. Frank went to the Polytechnische Oberschule and graduated after 10th grade, comparable to what today is called a “Realschulabschluss”. After this he studied Physics and Math to become a teacher.
He left Calbe (Saale) in 1972 and studied in Halle until 1978. Thereafter, Frank was a teacher in Glesin until he got to know his later wife Petra in 1980. They married in the same year and moved to Magdeburg, where he lives up until today. In 1982, Frank’s first son Steffen was born and at the end of March 1986 his second son Dirk followed.
After he had moved to Magdeburg, Frank became an accountant for SKET in Magdeburg, a state-owned company building large machinery. After a very heavy accident in the winter of 1984/85, the most important thing for Frank in the beginning of 1986 was that he could work full time again after he had spent almost a full year recovering. The most important people in his life back then were his wife and sons. They lived in a very old building in the city in the backyard of another house with charcoal heaters. Their living conditions were not the best, but socially this made not a big difference. Social contacts largely took place within the extended family and another married couple. Due to secret service activities people were very careful about what they said in public, e.g. when talking to colleagues and acquaintances.
Read the full interview
