Kentish Express Ashford & District
‘Get to Berlin - something is happening’
For the following three decades people risked their lives to cross this powerful Cold War monolith.
And then on November 9 the head of the communist party made a startling announcement that GDR citizens could now pass through the border whenever they wanted.
That night the city’s youths celebrated - fervently determined that Berlin should never again be divided.
The following morning I returned to the east-side of the city - this time the guards had got their act together and I was given a signed document allowing me to pass through Checkpoint Charlie.
I made my way to a hospital I had seen the previous day and went inside to talk to a doctor who had agreed to meet me. She smiled nervously as she told me of living just a few feet away from relatives in the West.
The doctor told of deprivations and struggles for professionals who were not members of the communist party; of not being able to freely buy a car, even though she could afford it.
As we chatted over a cup of very strange-tasting tea, I mentioned how people had been reluctant to talk to me the previous day.
“If I had agreed to be interviewed by you yesterday and the restrictions had returned today, I would now be dead or in prison,” she said.
She looked at me and shrugged her shoulders, adding; “You know freedom. We don’t. But maybe soon.”
After thanking her, I spent the rest of the day weaving through the line of the spluttering Trabant cars, packed with East Germans heading to the West.
I met sisters who, for the previous 20-odd years, had only being able to communicate by shouting to each other. Now they were crying and hugging each other and planning family visits.
It was sobering to talk with the mother of the first East German child born in the
West - who had arrived just hours after the collapse of communism.
I spent a week doing stories about the Wall and recording the hopes and dreams of the young who were now hoping for a future of peace and security.
However, my abiding memory of my time is of the taxi driver who took me from the wall to my hotel.
On her radio was playing Tracy Chapman’s eponymous album, which had been released the previous year.
We listened to Talkin’ ‘Bout A Revolution, Across the
Lines and Behind the Wall, but it was only when Mountain O’ Things came on she spoke to me.
The taxi driver, a student at university, admitted she struggled with the lyrics, which went: “To have a big expensive car, drag my furs on the ground. And have a maid that I can tell to bring me anything.
“Everyone will look at me with envy, and with greed I’ll revel in their attention And mountains Oh mountains o’ things.”
The cabbie asked incredulously: “I don’t understand. Does she mean that the secret of happiness is all about having possessions?”
I looked at thousands of people still pouring through the Checkpoint and said I thought the singer was being ironic.
And the irony of having a conversation like that at that moment in history wasn’t lost on me either.