"All in all you’re just another brick in the wall." — Pink Floyd
It is the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, and I remember this event as if it happened yesterday; it is still so fresh in my mind. This momentous event shook the world with the sound of sledgehammers and pickaxes slamming away against concrete, wielded by young and old alike with such ferocity that it seemed they were banging away at the regime that placed it there.
Having a mother who was of German descent, I always had an interest in Germany and its history and culture. As a young boy I was fascinated by the strength of the people and its art and literature, but was bothered by the fact that at one time “Germania” was seen as the home of barbarians during Roman times. That warlike nature certainly followed the people across the centuries, right up to the modern era when the Kaiser and then Hitler made war and caused agony for millions of people.
This interest first brought me to Germany in the early 1980s, and of course that eventually meant a trip to Berlin. Now that the country is reunited, it can seem to some, especially those born since the wall came down, like it was only a bad dream, but I saw the reality of the formidable guard towers along the West German-East German border, and there was more than a goosestep in the gait of East German soldiers, their perfect uniforms and dark boots reminiscent of the Nazi era.
I recall being on the bus joking with my friends, but the truth is that when you went through that border control, it was no laughing matter. One of my friends was Jewish, and all our cockiness evaporated as the stone-faced guard looked at our passports and decided to take David into a separate room. We all waited an hour and forty minutes until the guards escorted him back to our group and we resumed our journey.
Back on the bus and heading toward West Berlin, we all breathed a sigh of relief but drove through the stark landscape knowing we would have to go through this again. I leaned over and asked David what happened in the room, and he told me they just kept him there. The guards spoke on the phone, asked him questions about New York, and basically intimidated him with the prospect of a long-term detention. I could see how shaken he was, and I felt nervous too about the rest of the trip ahead of us.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
Or not...
Anyway, I was trying to say what a good article this is, Victor. Thanks.
It also raised a sense of ironic symmetry as we see our current government here in the US building walls between the classes and races and singling groups and individuals out for ostracization. The Stasi aren't here yet, but I find it even more troubling that the current administration has become so friendly with the transnational socialist elite who include many of the former apparatchiks of the eastern bloc.
Dave
2 - Baronius
Victor - Great writing. I actually welled up thinking about those days.
3 - Deano
Well done Victor!
4 - Victor Lana
Thanks for the comments. It was an amazing time. I just hope true "freedom" is never taken for granted, because walls tend to go up when that happens.
5 - Ruvy
You wrote an excellent article, Victor, drawing upon well evoked emotions.
I understand why this would be meaningful to you, the coming down of this wall, given that your mother was of German descent.
What is meaningful to me in a minor way is that it occurred on the 51st anniversary (by the Christian calendar) of Kristallnacht. Had it taken place on the 51st anniversary by the Hebrew calendar, I'd pay more attention to it - there would be something to seriously look for in terms of significance. That is not meant as an insult - that is simply how I look at time.
6 - Victor Lana
Ruvy, I realized that Kristallnacht occurred on the same day only after I submitted the article. It is ironic that this moment to advance freedom happened on the same night when the Nazis did everything they could to crush freedom in 1938.
7 - Callenda
Victor, good article. I felt like I see what you saw with my own eyes.
I remember the fall of the Wall as today, eventhough I was really young when it happened. I'm still not closed on my feelings about it. Whas it good or whas it bad? From one side, its was the beginning of freedom in everything: what you think, eat, drink, which music you listen and what you wear. From another side it was the beginning of Soviet Union end and, what I thought that time, the beginning of democracy. I was born and raised in the Baltic States... People of different nationalities were living in peace during Soviet Union, but after Berlin Wall and Soviet Union Fall the Baltic people built another wall: between aboriginals and russian-speaking. Why?
8 - Ruvy
Callenda,
Presumably, you live in Israel, no? You link to the Samson Blinded NewsBlog, one of my favorite sources for news.
The Soviet Union was really the Russian Empire without the czar. In the Soviet Union, Russian was taught as the "binding language", if I remember the terminology correctly.
When this Russian Empire fell, the natives in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia wanted no part of the imperial Russians who had conquered them and annexed them back in 1940. So they created this wall against the foreign occupiers.
If you were a young Russian-speaking child in 1989, you would not have seen things this way. You would not see yourself as part of a foreign occupation.
But that is how the native Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians saw you. And flying their own flags they wanted no part of you. I'm not saying that to be insulting. It's just the plain truth.
Give the Arabs in Judea and Samaria their own flag, and they will want no part of us. The difference is that we did not come and conquer some ancient Arab empire. We have resettled our own country, and Arabs settled here (in Samaria in particular) because there was work to be had, working for us.
One of my doctors comes from Latvia, by the way. He is great guy.
9 - Silas Kain
While the fall of the Berlin Wall was a great day for Germans and "democracy" we should remind ourselves that the United States is just as fragile today as the USSR 20 years ago. Reagan's "tear down this wall" and the ascendancy of Karol Wojtila to the Vatican are the great photo opps of that time but they are shadowed by the sheer will of the German people. Right now we need the passion of 1980's Germans right here in the good ol' U. S. of A.
10 - Silas Kain
Oh, and thank you Victor. Great job. This is another reader who's eyes welled reading it.
11 - Jim Vivanco
Hey, Vic,
Great article. It made me remember how much I love Freedom...back during the Gulf war in the 90's, I was in Saudi Arabia and I felt a sense of oppression while I was there but I had to travel to Germany for a week to get some equipment fix and, I tell you, it was like coming home! I love Germany and I love Western Freedom...Oh, that all the world were free!
12 - Victor Lana
Thanks for the great comments to all. Yes, we need that passion from the Germans of the 1980s and we need it before it is too late.