Berlin Wall

Today was the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. They celebrated by arranging a long line of 'dominoes' which they then toppled.

The wall was started in 1961 with fairly simple materials. It was later reinforced and made much stronger. When I was there in 1970, it was clear that building a wall in the middle of a city caused some severe problems. If you can imagine the street where you live, divided by a wall, so you no longer have contact with your neighbors across the road. Businesses on the west side of the wall were closed and the neighborhood seemed rather blighted. On the west side, we were able to walk right up to the wall. There was a wooden stairway next to the wall, leading to a platform at the top of the wall. When we climbed up there, we could see that all of the buildings on the east side had been cleared away. In their place was a large open area with tank traps and fences. Way off in the distance, where the East German buildings began again, a group of people were standing, just looking at the wall. Sometimes they would start to wave to people on the west side of the wall. We learned that families separated by the wall no longer had the possibility to see each other. They would arrange that on a particular day the family from the East would come to that street where they could see the wall. The family from the west would come to the platform where they could see over the wall to the east. There they could wave to each other even though it was probably a distance of several blocks that separated them. Very sad. It was their only contact.

I also visited the museum at Checkpoint Charlie which is the only checkpoint where foreigners were allowed to cross the border in the city of Berlin. The museum was dedicated to telling about the wall and the ways people used to escape from East Berlin.

We crossed into East Berlin for a visit of a few hours. One requirement at the time was that everyone who crossed from west to east must exchange 5 DMs for 5 East German Marks. It was quite a scam since at the time, East German Marks were worth far less than DMs. You could not exchange the money back when leaving the East. The difference in the stores in East and West was eye-0pening. West German grocery stores had a large, colorful variety of goods for sale. East German stores featured just one brand of each product, packaged in bland wrapping. Bread was thrown on the shelf totally without wrapping. Some loaves already had mold growing on them.

When riding the subway between some of the western sectors, the train went under East Berlin. The western trains were not allowed to stop under East Berlin. As we rode through abandoned subway stations, it was rather sobering to see armed guards watching us pass to make sure no one got on or off the subway there.

What a happy day it was when the wall came down.