Rita Bergemann and Michael Reck swim the Havel from Sacrow

Rita Bergemann, born in 1940, grew up in Potsdam and spent her youth in Sacrow on the Havel with Michael Reck, whom she had met at grammar school and who later became the father of her son. As a young woman she commuted every day from Potsdam into Berlin for her training.

When the border was sealed on 13 August 1961, leaving the city by S-Bahn was no longer possible. Michael's father, the owner of an engineering firm for heating and sanitation, urged his son to go to the West, and the couple decided to escape from Sacrow.

A good two weeks after the Wall went up they swam across the Havel at its narrowest point, about 300 metres from Sacrow to Moorlake on the West Berlin bank. They were betting that nobody would expect an escape at so obvious a spot. A control boat turned away shortly before it reached them, and both got across. Decades later Rita Bergemann said she still dreamed of hearing the voices of the men in the boat.

In the West the couple were assigned to Cologne and struggled with everyday life. Michael, once a cheerful young man, did not settle; he fell ill and died at the age of 28. Rita Bergemann later remarried and worked as a therapist in Rhineland-Palatinate. She told her story in the book 'Verschwommen', written with the journalist Angelika Basdorf, and after its publication moved back to Potsdam.