““In the GDR people were required to acknowledge an assortment of fictions as fact. Some of these fictions were fundamental, such as the idea that human nature is a work-in-progress which can be improved upon, and that Communism is the way to do it. Others were more specific: that East Germans were not the Germans responsible (even in part) for the Holocaust; that the GDR was a multi-party democracy; that socialism was peace-loving; that there were no former Nazis left in the country; and that, under socialism, prostitution did not exist.””
![“The penalties for being an accessory to the attempt to flee the [GDR] were greater than the crime of trying to flee itself.” quote by Anna Funder](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/b36/anna-funder-9522_east-germany_the-penalties-for-being-an-accessory-to_200410.jpg)
