An East German soldier helps a young boy secretly cross the Berlin Wall, August 13, 1961.

This is a photograph of an East German soldier helping a young boy cross the newly constructed Berlin Wall on the day it was built.

A boy left behind in the chaos of the escape and his families stranded on both sides of the border. The soldier is young, and his eyes, which make him look suspiciously over his shoulder, are filled with fear. And yet he persevered.

Although the East German government had given orders not to allow anyone into East Berlin, the soldier helped the boy slip through the barbed wire.

According to reports, the soldier was caught performing this charitable act by his superior officer and removed from his unit.

Hopefully, his sentence was light and he wasn’t imprisoned or shot. The descriptions of this photo come with the caveat that “no one knows what became of him.”

But how did this little boy get to the other side of the wall from his parents? According to the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin, one of his parents, his father, was visiting relatives with the boy in West Germany, while the rest of the family was at home in the East.

The ban on crossing sectors was implemented overnight, separating the family. The father believed the boy should be raised by his mother, so he let him run to the fence, where a soldier lifted him across.

During the night of August 12-13, 1961, police and East German army units began sealing the border, and by Sunday morning the border with West Berlin was closed.

East German troops and workers had begun tearing up the roads along the border, making them impassable for most vehicles. They had also erected barbed wire and other fences along a 156-kilometer stretch of the border around the three western sectors and along the 43-kilometer stretch separating West and East Berlin.

The barrier was built within East Berlin, or rather East German territory, to ensure that it did not extend into West Berlin at any point.

In general,  the Wall ran  only slightly inside East Berlin, but in some places it was some distance from the legal border. Later, the original barrier was integrated into the actual Wall; the first concrete elements and large blocks were installed on August 17.