Fritz50: Childhood and youth in the Fritz Heckert area

When I moved to the Fritz-Heckert area at the age of four, I was given a place in the children's combination in the inner courtyard of Albert-Köhler-Straße, a building that looked like it was made up of four huge, colourful building blocks.

After breakfast together, we spent the whole morning cutting, folding, painting, stamping, gluing, threading, sticking, stacking, building, weaving and singing. The teacher always encouraged us to work quickly and to keep the work area tidy... After a nap, we went outside to play. There were benches, sandpits, tiny climbing frames and stone steps with railings. A few trees had been planted, but they were still far too puny to provide any shade. Along the paths, scattered shrub seedlings tried to grow meagrely, but they weren't even dense enough to hide an Easter egg in. Flowers, lawns or even meadows were nowhere to be found here. It was more of an outdoor enclosure than a garden and yet we played there until our parents gradually picked us up at around five o'clock in the afternoon.

It was completely different to what I had known before. So many children everywhere, such big windows. But it didn't take long for me to settle in because I was quick and skilful and the nursery teacher often praised me and said things like: "Look, children, how beautifully Manuela has cut out and painted this mushroom! You've really done a great job!" I was able to feed off such comments for a long time. I loved going to kindergarten and was incredibly proud of all the crafts and pictures that I carried home and presented to my parents one by one for praise.

There were fairy tale characters on my sugar cone. I wore a red chequered dress, a white blouse with matching crocheted knee socks and a white vinyl belt. I proudly showed off the new red and yellow artificial leather satchel on my back for the first time. We learnt how to pack it on the very first day.

We sat dutifully, tensely and full of awe in our rows of benches and carried out every instruction meticulously. We were all washed, combed and dressed, and we were repeatedly reminded in a prayer wheel-like manner how important our part in the growth and development of socialist society would be and that we had to prove ourselves worthy by learning, questioning and researching tirelessly from then on.

My goodness! Some of the boys in the class were already starting to feel heavy under their eyelids. They had probably just realised what they had let themselves in for a bit of sugar in a silly cardboard bag. Sitting still and "doing little men" when addressed, they were served. Most of the girls sat upright at their desks with their forearms crossed and listened attentively to our class teacher with glowing cheeks. Her confident and stern demeanour was the result of decades in the teaching profession. She had probably seen it all and knew how to deal with every situation with kindness and dignity. I liked her very much.

On 1 June every year, Children's Day, we went to the Küchwald for the big "Indian Festival". The nature-loving, honourable and respect-inspiring natives of North America exerted a tremendous fascination. There was a loyal fan base in our part of the world, even among adults, who wore leather waistcoats and cowboy hats with childlike joy and gave our festival a professional setting. Perhaps it was the proximity to Karl May, the creator of numerous Wild West novels, who was born in Hohenstein-Ernstthal, perhaps the exotic subject matter also inspired enthusiasm because life as a citizen of the GDR sometimes felt like living on a reservation.

In any case, we children wrapped ourselves in woollen skirts and brown fringed waistcoats in a completely unsocialist way. We hauled in wood and built small shelters, stables and tepees with rope and string. The girls sat in front of it, guarding the cold fireplace, preparing delicious meals from cones and beechnuts on tree bark and cradling the baby dolls wrapped in artificial leather. The boys rushed through the undergrowth with a roar, chased game or each other, captured, gagged and bound, freed and shot at each other with plastic pistols.

Eight hours flew by and when I returned to my parents in the early evening, armed with all kinds of wooden tools, dirty and dishevelled, I honestly had the feeling that I had come home from a long journey.