The Wall didn’t end man’s inhumanity to man
I received an email containing extraordinary pictures of Ukraine before Putin’s war. The natural beauty, as well as exquisitely colorful buildings, displayed a country well cared for. East Germany was equally unique before Communism stripped it of any character. Hubby Ian and I were fortunate to step foot into East Germany the days before and after unification and hope and pray that Ukraine will arrive at their own day of peace soon.
November 1989, Ian and I flew from Ankara, Turkey, where we worked, to Germany for medical appointments; having a few free days, we rented a car and headed east to participate in the end of the Cold War.
We drove eastward through East Germany, on the only road between Berlin and West Germany, passing abandoned guard towers, just days before occupied by East German guards, machine guns at the ready. The road was straight and well cared for, but it was surrounded by stark emptiness. No gas stations, no trees, nothing.
The small entrance to the old, chipped hotel was lit by one bulb hanging from the ceiling. The man behind the desk did not smile, but produced a key in exchange for a small sum of German Marks. We were excited to be in East Germany, Potsdam to be exact, on the eve of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Wouldn’t it be fun to phone my parents in Miami and have them guess as to my whereabouts? However, the desk clerk shook his head when I asked to use the phone sitting on his desk to call the U.S.
“No phone to America,” he replied. “How about Great Britain?”
I asked, thinking we’d call Ian’s family. “No phone outside East Germany,” he grunted, convincing me that phones in East Germany provided no service beyond its border.
After taking our bag to a clean, sparse room via a darkened, circular marble staircase that had seen better days, we roamed the area. An armed soldier standing erect as the statue he guarded, turned his back on us when I lifted my camera. The streets and sidewalks were nearly empty; the few who passed us ignored us. No smiles, no words of greeting.
That night we stood at our room’s window, watching fireworks from Berlin in the distance and a few small signs of celebration from below us. I felt like citizens of the East were unsure of celebrating the unknown ahead of them.
The next morning, we drove to “The Wall”. We found Check Point Charlie already being dismantled and relieved of guards. Enterprising Germans rented hammers to anyone who wanted to knock out their own chunk of the Wall. A few also had pieces of the Wall displayed on wobbly tables, waiting to be sold to hunters of historical souvenirs. We left with three pieces of the Berlin Wall — one for each of our children and one for us. (Unfortunately, our son and we lost our chunks in the Camp Fire. Fortunately, our daughter still has hers.)
We found a break in the Wall where we could walk across into what the previous day was “No Man’s Land”. The stark change from West Berlin into East Berlin was unimaginable. The large, empty buildings, still pock-marked from WWII, were drab and uninviting. Only dirt surrounded them. We saw no cars. The silence was eerie. Where were the revelers?
The children? Had they already gone through the break in the Wall, looking for long-lost relations?
Barbed wire still adorned the top of the Wall; it haunted me to know that escapees had been caught up in that wire and left hanging after soldiers shot at their backs. Knowing that Easterners had clandestinely dug tunnels under the Wall to escape, only to be sniffed out by vicious German Shepherds, was chilling. When reality hits so heavily, we are not always prepared to face it.
We had just spent a couple days in what once was No-Man’s Land to Westerners. Now, the West, once a NoMan’s Land to Easterners, was open for all to enter. The Wall had represented the epitome of man’s inhumanity to man. If only that ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Now we have Ukraine.