What do we do to gain our freedom? Just how big of a risk are we willing to take? This is a pulley I used in 1986 to defect from Czechoslovakia into Austria. My first steps to getting to U.S. were not easy. With this secretly made device, I was able to say NO to a totalitarian regime, and I zip lined over the Iron Curtain on a 380kV power line coming out of a nuclear reactor. More on this Cold War Era event, and on other kind of escape gadgets, placed in the Checkpoint Charlie Museum in Berlin, Germany, visit the photo gallery at my website.

--Daniel Pohl