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Memories of Magical Moments
Helga Johnson was born in Berlin on Dec. 9, 1934. Her parents were Dr. Fritz and Edith Stege. She was a girl of 14 during the Berlin Airlift, when food brought in by the United States and her allies helped her grow up. She attended high school until 1954. In 1958 she married an American (“he loved classical music as much as I did!”) and in 1959 she left for the United States, where her career began as a buyer of classical records for the Harvard University store (The Coop) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “I was well known to the members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and had many famous guests in my department for autograph hunters,” she recalls, happy to receive a glowing newspaper review from a leading music critic upon leaving the Coop. “I never was homesick, I love this country!” In 1980 Helga moved to New Jersey and retired from her previous working life. She now spends some of her time assisting her second husband, Sven Johnson, who owns a factory in Belvidere. “We married in 1981 – a very happy union!” she says. Her daughter lives on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, and two sons are running the factory. Helga also tours the United States with the "Spirit of Freedom", a Douglas C-54E R-5D that flew in the Airlift and is now maintained for educational purposes by the New Jersey-based Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation as a "flying museum". Johnson, who was a girl of 14 during the Airlift and now acts as a self-proclaimed "Berliner mascot".
1.) What do you remember most vividly about your own personal experience as a child during the Berlin Airlift? We had very little to eat during the years after the war and no heat in the apartment – the Russians blocked us off in 1948 from getting anything, which really frightened us. All of a sudden I heard planes flying over the city, many and no bombs, having to run to our bomb shelter! In school we received food unexpectedly, a delicious yellow pudding, yellow bread (corn flour) – nothing ever was so delicious. Also coal was available and we could heat our home. Unfortunately we lived too far away from the airport, had no transportation to get there, so I missed out on the fun, picking up chocolate parachutes, I found out much later.
2.) How did it feel when, in Sept. 2007, you had a unique chance of your own to drop some candy from a plane during a special commemorative ceremony honoring the legacy of the Airlift? In September 2007 I was invited by Timothy Chopp, the president of the Berlin Airlift Historical Foundation and pilot of a C-54 plane which flew most of the missions in 1948/49 to fly with him to Norfolk. When he told me that Gail Halvorsen, the Candy Bomber, was the co-pilot and that they let me drop the first candy on a designated spot, I was thrilled. And there we were, circling over the Wright Brothers Memorial at Kitty Hawk – on the ground were the reunion people who had participated in the Airlift. I sat at the open emergency window, held my parachute, waited for a signal from Tim and let go! Stepping back from the window I cried. Here I was in a plane that dropped food and other necessities on Berlin to keep us alive, and 59 years later was able to drop the candy that I never received as a kid! This was a very emotional moment for me which I shall never forget. 3.) As a German-born U.S. resident married to an American, what does the German-American friendship signify to you? Having lived in the United States since 1959, and having become a citizen three years later, I feel very proud to be a US citizen, to identify with this wonderful country. So many Americans lost their lives in a terrible war to end this awful conflict, bring peace and democracy to the German people. And then helping them to stay alive, the former enemy only a few years prior, makes the Airlift an extraordinary accomplishement, a humane action which should never be forgotten.
4.) How do you think the Berlin Airlift influenced the German-American friendship? How do you view this friendship today and how do you see it evolving? This is a difficult question to answer. The older people in Berlin who survived the war and recall the kindness of the American people will never forget. But the younger generation needs to be reminded since they can’t identify with the horrors of war and hunger – it has to be experienced and yet, I don’t wish it on anybody. It seems, to me, talking to friends, that the German-American friendship has to be developed through historical facts, writing about the Airlift as much as possible, showing good deeds from a country as this, reminding them of the care packages that arrived after the war. This is the only way to keep the friendship alive, not through the often biased press and media in both countries, but through people themselves. |
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 Friends Always – The Legacy of The Berlin Airlift Lives On
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