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165 Escape Routes
逃跑途徑
While the Warsaw Pact was at full strength, life in Eastern Europe was less than palatable for much of the population.
當華沙條約還頗具威力的時候，東歐生活對絕大多數人來說并不是那么愜意。
At that time,Western planes would often drop pamphlets describing a life of luxury on the other side.
當時，西方的飛機經常會散發一些小冊子來宣傳他們那邊的奢華生活。
It was easy for people to draw parallels with their own dreary existence and, no wonder, many thought of ingenious ways to escape.
因此，人們很容易拿自己沉悶單調的生活與之相比，這樣一來，人們就想出了很多別出心裁的逃跑途徑，這也是不足為怪的。
In the early days, when the borders were still partially open, a common method was to put some extra panels inside a truck, panelling off a small area for people to hide in.
最初，當邊境線還部分開放，沒有完全關閉的時候，最普通的逃跑方法是在卡車內部鑲嵌一些額外的木板，用這些鑲板隔出一塊地方以供人們躲藏。
Many went into panic during the meticulous searches by the border police and wet their pants with fear.
邊境警察會一絲不茍地上上下下檢查，很多人會感到極其恐慌，而且由于害怕，他們的褲子通常都尿濕了。
Some were caught.Other emerged pallid-a whiter shade of pale-on the other side.
有些人被抓住了。還有些人終于到了目的地，但臉上已經沒有血色，也就是說，面色蒼白。
A variant of this technique was for people to be added to packages of items such as paintings, to be sent across the border as bits of rail freight.
除此之外還有一種逃跑方法：人們躲在包裝箱里，比方說藏在裝油畫的貨箱里，被當作鐵路貨運的散件物品送出邊境。
Some people went out and bought themselves kayaks, becoming midnight paddlers across the icy Elbe river.
還有些人會出去買一只小艇，在午夜時分劃著獨木舟穿過冰冷的易北河。
A few daring souls early on even managed to get across Berlin's Brandenburg Gate, dashing across the line, parallel to the marching Soviet soldiers on parade.
早期甚至有少數大膽鬼成功地穿過了柏林的布蘭登堡門，跨越邊境線，其勇氣簡直可以與游行的蘇聯士兵媲美。
Yet others went through the painstaking process of stitching together metres upon metres of silk to make their own parachutes for gliding down from one of the mountains in an isolated part of the border region.
也有一些人會不辭辛勞的一針一線親自縫制一米又一米的降落傘，以便能在邊境地區的某個偏僻角落順利滑翔下山。
Many of this attempts paralleled the escapes of British prisoners of war from German camps during World War Ⅱ.
某些逃跑嘗試堪與第二次世界大戰中從德國集中營逃跑的英國戰俘相匹敵。
And just like those days, not all escape attempts were successful.
和那時一樣，并非所右的逃跑嘗試最后都能成功。
Quite a number of those who tried to escape ended up in paralysis, some of them paralyzed for life.
相當一部分試圖逃跑的人都癱瘓了，有些人甚至是終生癱瘓。
