(no subject)
I feel like I should write something about the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall... but instead I'll link to this great post by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
selenak. The video clips brought tears to my eyes. She also links back to her post from last year about the historical significance of this date.
Sometimes I find it hard to believe that for some of my younger friends the divided Germany is something out of the history books. Like selenak I grew up during the cold war and the wall was just a fact of life, there to stay. The GDR wasn't a foreign country: it was more than that, it was stranger than England or France or Holland which were all just a short trip away; the language barrier was nothing compared to the barrier between the two German states, the red tape. I knew the GDR mostly from the news, from one class day-trip to East Berlin in grade ten that seemed somehow surreal, and from transit - which was even more surreal: tourists to Poland weren't allowed to leave the highway, just drive through, don't stop except at the intershop or one or two designated gas stations, and try not to look at the GDR border guards the wrong way. One time they were already done with the searching of the trailer but then our little Snopky barked at the guard, and he came back to search the trailer for three more hours, in the middle of the night.
My step dad was from Warsaw, so our family traveled back and forth across that border a lot... my parents dozens of times, us kids a couple. My mom once told me that she'd been approached by the West German secret service once, and my step dad by some East European intelligence agency, both with a job offer... you know, a little light spying on the side (they declined). Sounds bizarre now but at the time I didn't doubt it... it was just the way things were.
There are days when I don't even want to watch the news... it's a good feeling to know that, ever once in a while, things can get better.
selenak. The video clips brought tears to my eyes. She also links back to her post from last year about the historical significance of this date. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that for some of my younger friends the divided Germany is something out of the history books. Like selenak I grew up during the cold war and the wall was just a fact of life, there to stay. The GDR wasn't a foreign country: it was more than that, it was stranger than England or France or Holland which were all just a short trip away; the language barrier was nothing compared to the barrier between the two German states, the red tape. I knew the GDR mostly from the news, from one class day-trip to East Berlin in grade ten that seemed somehow surreal, and from transit - which was even more surreal: tourists to Poland weren't allowed to leave the highway, just drive through, don't stop except at the intershop or one or two designated gas stations, and try not to look at the GDR border guards the wrong way. One time they were already done with the searching of the trailer but then our little Snopky barked at the guard, and he came back to search the trailer for three more hours, in the middle of the night.
My step dad was from Warsaw, so our family traveled back and forth across that border a lot... my parents dozens of times, us kids a couple. My mom once told me that she'd been approached by the West German secret service once, and my step dad by some East European intelligence agency, both with a job offer... you know, a little light spying on the side (they declined). Sounds bizarre now but at the time I didn't doubt it... it was just the way things were.
There are days when I don't even want to watch the news... it's a good feeling to know that, ever once in a while, things can get better.