Much has been written about socialism but very little about what it was like to live as an ordinary citizen under socialism in East Germany. With the fall of the Berlin Wall now 30 years past, the realities of that time have begun to fade. Some people have even become nostalgic, such as former Party functionaries and others who benefited from the communist rule. For the rest, however, it is important to bear witness to what it was really like to live in those times before the memories begin to vanish.

The stories in this book are by their nature far from complete because memory is not linear but impressionistic. Still, the reader may find them of interest because they are the legacy of a lost socialist world.