A Night Divided

Twelve-year-old Gerta Lowe, the novel’s protagonist, lives with her mother and older brother, Fritz, under communist rule in East Berlin. Four years ago, in 1961, Gerta’s father and her other brother, Dominic, crossed the border into West Berlin to look for a new place for the family to live—conditions in the east had steadily worsened in recent years, and Gerta’s father wanted to move the family to the west, where they would have more freedom and opportunity. But before they could return, the Berlin Wall was raised, restricting East Berliners from crossing the border. Gerta hasn’t seen her father or brother since. Although most East Berliners have gradually adjusted to life under communist rule, obstinate and opinionated Gerta struggles to accept the conformity and censorship that East Germany’s government forces on its citizens.

One day, Gerta and Fritz are listening to a contraband Beatles album in Fritz’s room when Fritz tells Gerta some shocking news: Peter Warner, the older brother of Gerta’s best friend, Anna, plans to escape to the west this evening. Gerta is shocked that Peter would attempt an escape: it’s incredibly risky, not to mention deadly.

The next morning Gerta is walking to school with Anna when she sees Papa on the other side of the wall, near the Death Strip—it’s the first time she’s seen him since he left. Rather strangely, he’s doing a funny dance that involves pantomimed digging—and it seems like he’s trying to direct Gerta’s attention to a specific spot along the Death Strip. Suddenly, a guard, Müller, starts to get suspicious and warns Gerta not to pay such close attention to the wall. Gerta and Anna continue on to school, but Gerta makes note of the spot along the Death Strip that Papa was pointing to.

At supper later, Mama tells Gerta that the guards caught Peter trying to cross the border and killed him as punishment. When Gerta admits to Mama that Fritz knew about the plan, Mama panics, and she and Gerta go to Fritz’s workplace, where he’s employed as a bricklayer, to find him. Their fear spikes when Fritz’s foreman tells them that the Stasi picked up Fritz earlier that day. Mama and Gerta return home, dejected.

The next day, Gerta finds a disheveled, bruised Fritz sitting beside Mama in the kitchen. Silently, he shows Gerta some messages he wrote on pieces of paper. Gerta reads them and learns how the Stasi found out about Peter’s escape plan and why they took Fritz away: their apartment is bugged, and likely has been for some time (Papa was involved in some worker uprisings some years back, and the Stasi closely monitored him—and has continued to monitor his family—ever since). From that point forward, Gerta, Mama, and Fritz take extra care not to say anything incriminating when they are inside their apartment. After Peter’s death, Anna breaks off her friendship with Gerta, angrily accusing her of knowing about Peter’s plan and not doing anything to stop him. She also thinks it’s dangerous to associate with Gerta, who is clearly as revolutionary as her father.

Anna refuses to talk to Gerta until the end of the school year. Then one day, out of nowhere, she silently passes Gerta a piece of paper containing a drawing of an old building. Gerta immediately recognizes the map as her father’s work. When she presses Anna for details, Anna finally admits that the drawing was hidden inside a condolence letter that some relatives from West Berlin sent Anna’s family following Peter’s death. Anna refuses to say more, however, and she also tells Gerta that nothing has changed: they’re still not friends. They part ways. On her way home, Gerta finds a building along the Death Strip and identifies it as the building depicted in her father’s drawing. She resolves to return to the building—which she nicknames the Welcome Building, after a sign on its exterior—to investigate further.

Gerta later returns to the Welcome Building and, careful to avoid the guards, creeps inside and makes her way down to the basement. There, all she finds is an air-raid shelter. After remembering Papa’s silly dance, it finally occurs to her that Papa wants her to dig a tunnel to West Berlin and to freedom. But digging the tunnel is a majorly risky project, and Gerta struggles to do it on her own. And so, as Fritz walks Gerta to school one day, she tells him all about Papa’s messages, the Welcome Building, and her plan to dig the tunnel. Although Fritz is initially dubious of Gerta’s dangerous plan, he decides that the reward of freedom is worth the immense risk and agrees to help her.

The siblings decide to pretend that they’re working on a garden as cover for their plan, getting official permission from the state to work in the plot of earth outside the Welcome Building. Then they get to work, with Fritz doing the digging and Gerta hauling bucket after bucket of excavated dirt from the basement and into the garden patch outside. Their plan works for some time, but they experience many close calls, with their nosy neighbor, Frau Eberhart, starting to ask questions about the siblings’ dirt-covered clothing. Anna, whose apartment overlooks the Death Strip, also notices Fritz and Gerta’s activity near the Welcome Building, though she seems to believe their cover story about the garden.

One day, Fritz and Gerta are working on the tunnel when they hear footsteps nearby. Not long after, Officer Müller enters the building and discovers the tunnel. At first Fritz and Gerta are certain they’re doomed—they know that trying to escape is punishable by death. But Müller, it turns out, has a family—and his wife, Frau Müller, would love to escape to the west. Müller agrees to keep the tunnel a secret if Fritz and Gerta will allow him as his family to escape with them once the tunnel is finished.

Despite their stroke of luck with Müller, the siblings encounter another setback when Fritz accidentally hits a pipe while digging one day and the tunnel starts to flood. He runs out to get supplies to repair the leak, but the leak severely destabilizes the tunnel, causing the earth above it to sink. Gerta is further horrified when she realizes that the sinking earth is visible from aboveground. They have to act fast now, since it’s only a matter of time before more guards catch on to their plan.

During this time, Mama, has been staying with Oma Gertrude, Gerta’s grandmother, who recently suffered a bad fall. When Mama returns from Oma’s, Gerta and Fritz have no choice but to tell her about the plan. Although she is beside herself with worry, she eventually agrees that her children are doing what they need to do: escaping is a great risk, but the freedom and chance at a better life they’ll have in West Berlin is worth it. Much to Gerta and Fritz’s shock, she agrees to help them, bringing food to the tunnel and even doing some digging herself.

After they’ve been digging for quite a few days, Gerta visits Anna’s apartment, which directly overlooks the Death Strip, to calculate how much farther they have to dig. She investigates the wall from Anna’s window and guesses that they have about halfway to go. While there, however, she notices that Anna’s boots are caked with dirt and realizes that Anna has been in the tunnel and has been spying on them all along. Equally furious and terrified by Anna’s betrayal, Gerta returns to the tunnel to tell Fritz and Mama what she learned. They resolve to work as quickly as possible. With Anna onto them (and possibly operating as a Stasi informant), and with Fritz’s deadline to report for military duty having been recently pushed forward, time is of the essence now more than ever before.

Gerta, Mama, and Fritz continue to dig. One day, they hear sounds coming from elsewhere underground and realize that someone else is digging, too. And when they hear a familiar singing voice coming from the other tunnel, they realize it’s Papa. The Lowes are overjoyed to be reunited at last. But though they’ve made considerable progress with their respective tunnels, they know they’re not in the clear just yet: the tunnels aren’t stable enough to be connected just yet: they’ll collapse without added reinforcement.

Later, Anna confronts Gerta outside the Welcome Building and confirms that she and her family have been Stasi informants since Peter’s capture—the Stasi threatened to arrest Anna’s parents otherwise. Anna promises Gerta that she hasn’t told the Stasi about the tunnel yet—but she will tomorrow morning. She has to, for her family’s sake. Gerta accuses Anna of sacrificing Gerta’s family to save her own, though she realizes she’d likely do the same. When she pleads with Anna to understand where she’s coming from—the freedom that has driven her family to undertake the great risk of trying to escape to the west—Anna refuses to understand why Gerta can’t just be happy with what she has. They part ways. Gerta returns to the tunnel and tells her family that they must leave tonight: Anna will alert the Stasi about the tunnel tomorrow morning.

Gerta and Mama head home to pack. But before they can return to the tunnel, Stasi officers confront them at their apartment. They’re looking for Fritz, who was supposed to report for military duty earlier that day. Mama and Gerta feign ignorance about Fritz’s whereabouts, but the officers refuse to accept this. One officer, Viktor—a former friend of Fritz’s—stays behind to guard Mama and Gerta. Mama tries to appeal to Viktor’s emotions, asking him to remember how he and Fritz used to be such good friends, but he refuses to comply. It’s clear where his allegiances lie. Finally, with no other options, Mama indiscreetly places the keys to their car on the kitchen table, an implicit act of bribery that Viktor accepts. He goes to the other room, giving Mama and Gerta the chance to escape.

Mama and Gerta anxiously make their way to the Welcome Building. There, everyone furiously gets to work connecting the two tunnels. Officer Müller and his family are there as well, having responded to Fritz’s signal that the escape will take place tonight. Not long after, Anna and her parents arrive: they want to join the Lowes in west. It’s taken a while, but Anna finally understands why Gerta—and Peter before her—is willing to risk anything for freedom. Gerta is elated that she’ll be able to enjoy her newfound freedom with her best friend by her side. Just then, armed officers arrive at the building and begin to shoot. Müller pushes Gerta out of the way of the line of fire, allowing her to escape to safety—but taking a lethal bullet himself.

In the end, it’s a close call, but Gerta and her loved ones all make it to the west and to freedom. Gerta and her family reunite. A few hours later, Gerta looks up at the rising sun and realizes that at long last, “the long, dark night [is] over.”