No regrets: East Germans recall attempts to escape Communist state

FILE PHOTO: Angelika Bondick, a 63-year-old west Berlin sales assistant, walks along the Berlin Wall memorial on Bernauer Strasse in Berlin, Germany, October 22, 2019. On November 9th Germany will mark the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (Berliner Mauer) in 1989. Picture taken October 22, 2019. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

SCHONDORF AM AMMERSEE, Germany (Reuters) - More than four decades after Carmen Rohrbach tried to swim her way out of then-Communist East Germany, she has no regrets, despite getting caught and being sent to prison.

Rohrbach, now 71, had always wanted to be an explorer. As a child, she learned to ride horses in the hope of one day touring Mongolia. Her dreams were crushed when she completed her biology degree in eastern Germany.