You are visiting the website of Renate and Alfred Kostbade.
Our greatest triumph is not
never to fall, but
to get up again and again
to finish what we started.
People often accept other people's decisions as final; we adapt to the seemingly inevitable and come to terms with circumstances; sometimes it's necessary to lead a risk-free existence; you can't blame those who have made this choice; we know what happened to people who publicly expressed non-conformist views or were caught in failed attempts to escape from the GDR.
In one of the many conversations with the state organs of the GDR, we were told:
"You are not one of the people who will ever be allowed to leave the country," we were told in what appeared to be a final decision."
But for us, it was an incentive to prove the opposite and find a way to go our own way without the government's approval, which, after careful preparation and a bit of luck, we eventually did.
"We took our chance!"
