Comments on: Uncut Interviews

By: Iliana Tolentino

Iliana Tolentino — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 22:30:05 +0000

Interviewer: Iliana Tolentino (IT)
Interviewee: Maria Bello (MB)
IT:
Please take a few moments to introduce yourself. Start from where you were raised and briefly sketch your life to the present.
MB:
My name is Maria Bello. I was born in Bari, Italy. My family and I moved to West- Berlin in 1976. I graduated high school and then I went to school to become a paralegal. After I graduated I worked as a translator for the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Berlin. I left Berlin one and a half years after the wall came down. My family and I moved the United States
IT:
On what side of Berlin were you living on while the city was divided, and how did this affect you and your way of living?
MB:
Living in west Berlin didnâ€™t really affect me the only times it did, is when we used to travel down to Italy either by train or car it would take a long time to pass through the east part of Berlin because they had a speed limit and of course the checkpoints/ borders. If I remember correctly there was one entering the east and one leaving the east and there would always be traffic jams because they would stop cars and conduct searches for people you might be smuggling out of the east.
IT:
Please recall your opinions (of the time) towards the division of Berlin. Did you support the division?
In your opinion, was the division of Berlin reasonable?
Why or why not?
MB:
I had no real opinion about it I donâ€™t recall ever discussing that issue with friends
IT:
Why, do you think you never discussed this issue?
MB:
The wall was part of our lives we grew up with it so we didnâ€™t really talk about it we just accepted it as it is
IT:
Did you ever visit the East?
If you did, why?
MB:
Yes, I believe it was 1987 I was hired for a translating job for the Leipziger Messe I think I was there for a whole week it was very interesting. Since I did not wanted to spend my money on a Hotel room my Boss organized (since he left for Leipzig before me) for me to stay with a local family. I paid 20,00 Deutsche Mark per night they didnâ€™t want any East German Mark also my Boss asked me to bring a few pairs of silk stockings, coffee and the BRAVO a youth magazine for my host family, because they were not able to get those things in the East I know they had coffee but I guess the West coffee was better? I remember going there was like a culture shock for me everything was so grey everything seemed like a black and white movie what also shocked me were those building complex called â€œPlattenbauâ€ I had a hard time finding the right house entrance almost for the entire time I was there. But I must say I was pleasantly surprised about the people I met while I was there. For one the family I was staying with treated me like their own making breakfast and waiting for me to get up so we could eat together, driving me to the Messe. Their son took me to his youth club thatâ€™s how/where they spend their free time. I remember the Teenager asking me about MTV and they loved Michael Jackson and all of them dreamed about visiting Italy one day.
IT:
Please describe the conditions Berliners faced when traveling between the two sectors.
MB:
I already answered this in the second question you asked me. I also should say that since I am not a Berliner maybe my traveling experience was different maybe Berliners were more likely to be harassed by the East German Police.
IT: why so?
MB: well maybe they thought a Berliner was more likely to do something against their law or smuggle their family members out, out of personal interest.
IT:
Did you have any family members or friends living on the other side? How did the division come between your friendships or your relations to family members?
MB:
Luckily I had no family members or friends living in the east side of Berlin since all my family lives in Italy.
IT:
But if you did have family members on the other side what would you have done or how do you think you would have felt?
MB:
Well it is hard to say, I canâ€™t imagine not being able to see my family since we are very close, I guess I would have tried everything to reunite the family
IT:
How do you think were children affected by the partition of the city?
MB:
I donâ€™t think that children ever thought about the partition of the city at least I canâ€™t recall any of my German friends or my school- mates mentioning the Wall, I guess if they had family in the east it would have been different.
IT:
You have told me that you traveled through the east and west side of Berlin. Correct?
MB:
Yes I did say that
IT:
How many times have you traveled through the different sides of Berlin and in your opinion did you always have the same encounters?
MB:
At least twice a year. Yeah it was pretty much the same boring drive scary at times.
IT:
What was your perception of life and politics on the other side?
MB:
My perception was that people in the east had no freedom of speech they were not free to leave or to visit Western countryâ€™s. People had no possessions and where told what to study or what type of work they are to do. They also had to wait 10 years to get a car (I guess they had to apply for one but I donâ€™t know how it worked.)
IT:
Do you think the way the eastern people were living was fair or unfair?
MB:
Well definitely unfair!! How can you prohibit Human beings to go where they please or to say what they want without being punished
IT:
Can you provide examples of blatant censorship/propaganda on either side?
MB:
No, I remember people mentioning a T.V. channel called â€˜DER SCHWARZE KANALâ€™ used for propaganda in the east.
IT:
If you had children at the time, how did you explain the partition of Germany?
MB:
I was too young to have had children
IT:
Well letâ€™s say you were old enough to have children what would you have said?
MB:
I am not sure I guess I would tell it as it came to be.
IT:
Where were you when the wall came down?
MB:
I was at home with my family watching television and I remember not believing what was happening, we were so used to the Wall that we didnâ€™t think it would ever come down. The next day my family and I went to Bornholmer Strasse (since we were living in Wedding that was one of the borders/crossing points for East and West) I remember hundreds of people either walking or in Trabantâ€™s (small east German cars) coming over to the West either crying of joy laughing and hugging us. What I also remember is seeing hundreds of Banana peels on the streets. I was later told that it was really rare (if at all) that you could get Bananaâ€™s in the East.
IT:
Whoa, If I were you I would have been totally terrified of all them banana peels on the ground I would have thought that it was the end of the world or something, but anyways back to the point, What were your emotions that day, did they emotions of the other people influence you?
MB:
Of course, it was heartbreaking seeing familyâ€™s crying hugging and kissing each other telling each other how much they missed each other and how happy they are now.
IT:
How, if at all, did you resent the US military presence in Berlin?
MB:
I did not resent the U.S. presence; in fact I am glad the U.S. military was in Berlin otherwise I would have not met my husband since he was one of the soldiers that were stationed in West- Berlin. But I know all Berliners were thankful of the allies the French and the British and the protection they offered.
IT:
Did you live in the American sector?
MB:
No, actually I lived near the French sector but anywhere you went in Berlin you always met either one of the members of the allies.
IT:
How did you feel that the West was helping West Berlin?
How were they hurting?
MB:
I had never thought about how the West helped West- Berlin I was so busy trying to learn the German way of life and that didnâ€™t include the political part, but you could not miss knowing that the West supported West- Berlin at least financially and economically.
IT:
Did your parents ever talk about Berlin or its separation?
MB:
Yes, I remember my father often talked about it with his friends.
IT: Well Maria I thank you very much for your time that was very interesting hearing your point of view on the fall of the Wall. I guess these are real life stories we wouldnâ€™t be reading in any history book.
MB: Oh no problem I am glad you enjoyed my stories

By: Erik Shemanski

Erik Shemanski — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 06:29:21 +0000

Interviewer: Erik Shemanski
Interviewee: Raimo Mitschke
ES: Please take a few moments to introduce yourself, start from where you were born and raised and briefly describe your life to the present.
RM: My name is Raimo Mitschke. I work at the US embassy in Berlin. I work in the economic section, I used to work in the political section, and I was born and raised in West Berlin and I went to school there, but later on I went to school in the States, and spent part of my university career in the states. I worked on Capital Hill, and also engaged in Presidential campaigns in the US, so thatâ€™s my US background before joining the US Embassy.
ES: Can you please recall your opinions towards the division of Berlin. Did you support the division? Why or why not? Did u think that the division of Berlin was Reasonable? Why or why not?
RM: I think my answer to that question is influenced from todayâ€™s perspective. Today I enjoy and value the reunification of Germany. At the time of the division of Germany when I grew up I only knew the city being divided, I always thought this was awkward, strange, but then again thinking about unification probably always meant thinking about the communist side taking over and this was not desirable, it was not something that you wanted to happen so under no circumstanced were unification as part of a free and democratic Germany did seem possible at all, so that way as bad as the situation of the division seemed to be or was it still seemed by far the lesser of two evils.
ES: Did you have any family members of friends living on the other side of the wall? How did the division come between your friendships or your relations to family members?
RM: I did have family on the other side of the wall, both in east Berlin and south of Berlin. It was very difficult to get there, as a west Berliner you were treated differently by the east German government than being a west German citizen, a west German citizen it was enough to pull out the passport at the boarder and say I want to cross, for an East Berliner it was required to have a visa just to go to the other side of the city, and you had to apply three weeks in advance, so you couldnâ€™t just wake up and say oh I want to visit west Germany, you had to plan things way in advance.
ES: How did you feel that West Berlin had a puppet-style Government during the partition?
RM: It was never obvious to me growing up as a student. I have realized that of course the allied status did not permit the west Berlin government to do things that other state governments in western Germany were allowed to do. I then realized that there were certain imitations, but growing up it was frightening for the broad republic that was not really obvious anymore in the 1970â€™s because the western allies publicly did not interfere in a way that the western Berlin public wouldnâ€™t really take notice. I mean it was going on behind the scenes but not in public so for the general public the West Berlin government was like any other state government but when you knew a little bit more you knew that the powers would be different.
ES: How did you resent the US military presence in Berlin?
RM: I donâ€™t know I cant speak for the true public for my generation because at the time I would have to say that one would have to differentiate between the thinking that was there in western Germany, and what people were thinking in west Berlin. When you lived in west Berlin the military presence was a very reassuring thing, because you knew as long as the troops were there west Berlin will be free. I mean it was a safeguard you may not fully agree with all the policies, but overall those troops were guaranteeing the freedom of West Berlin. And since there was no German military in West Berlin the western allied military presence was what defended oneself.
ES: And how did you feel that the West was helping West Berlin? How were they hurting West Berlin?
RM: I think a lot of that I just answered, because the political presence was to look after what was going on in west Berlin, I saw and considered something positive, because the fear of west Berlin was to be left alone that world politics would maybe forget about them and if the world forgot about them then the Russians would come in and take over. So as long as the west German allies were paying attention to the situation in Berlin, there was what was reassured that the status of west Berlin would not change to a negative way.
ES: At What point did you feel confident that the country was going to be reunited? What happened to make you confident that the reunification was on its way?
RM: Like I said earlier it was for me growing up in a city that was divided in a situation where change wasnâ€™t always considered likely to be a change to the positive, and it took me a long time to realize that there was actually a change, and the change would become positive after a while. It wasnâ€™t until the early summer of 1990, and this was way after the fall of the wall, and then I realized that the unification was really on its way. Even after the wall, after November 9th I still didnâ€™t believe in any unification, I thought there would be a separate East German state, because I still didnâ€™t believe in the unification.
ES: On November 9th how did you find out about the fall of the wall? Where were you on the night when the wall fell, and who were you with?
RM: I was visiting my parents, they also lived in Berlin, and we watched it on television and my fist thought was that when the announcement came that the East German government was willing to issue visas to the East Germans to go over to West Berlin. I thought it was a break through, but I still thought it would take the East German government a few days until we would see anyone actually cross the boarder. But as we know I was very wrong because it didnâ€™t take a few days to cross, it only took a few hours for people to hear about the fall and to try to get across.
ES: Describe the atmosphere when the wall came down, what was it like?
RM: (laugh) a very easy way to describe it is that it was a zoo (laugh) you had to imagine that West Berlin was for most people the showcase, it wasnâ€™t only a big city but it was also a big city with a lot of interesting things to see. For example department stores, theaters, everything, thatâ€™s why you canâ€™t imagine the stream of people and cars it was like a avalanche of people, like the flood gates were open and people were pouring in. It is actually pretty literal the flood gates being the wall and so people would just stream across. November 9th was a Thursday, so the real flood was setting in on Friday of course the western cities stores were staying open all Saturday and all Sunday because they could not cope with all the people. All the people just wanted to get a feel of what the west was like and if it was actually the way they thought it was to be. And as a west Berliner you would try to stay home (laugh) and off the streets because it was just crowded. It was a very joyful and chaotic situation, and there was a lot of energy in the air, you could tell.
ES: What was the first emotion you felt when you knew Germany had been reunited?
RM: Really relieved that it happened very smoothly and peacefully, because I mentioned the 300,000 Russian troops around West Berlin, basically controlling the gates and the access routes to Berlin, and they could have handled the situation very differently. And in addition the East German military could have been ordered to shoot the people, and to stop the demonstration, but all this didnâ€™t happen. I just know that I felt that it was a great sense of relief, and in a way it was a loss because I knew with unification the western allies would leave. And the western allied troops would leave, and it was a reassuring thing and I was actually sad when the western allied troops left.
ES: On the day the wall fell did you see anyone that you knew on the other side? What did you feel when you were reunited with that person or those people?
RM: I didnâ€™t see anyone that I knew, actually on November 9th when everything happened in the evening I didnâ€™t go out that night but I managed to visit my friend in the morning and we had breakfast together. She said well lets go to the wall thereâ€™s a lot going on, and I wasnâ€™t very excited to go to a place where a lot of people have been and are still there, because Iâ€™m not really a crowd person. So we ended up going to one of the checkpoints, and it was a situation and an atmosphere that I have never experienced before, people were so happy, and it was incredible, hugging and kissing each other, and we continued towards the Brandenburg gate which was not a checkpoint so there was no way to get across it so we went up to the wall at the Brandenburg gate. It was not easy to do, you had to get help from other people reaching down so that they could pull you up. And as we were in the middle of the wall the former mayor arrived and it was a very emotional and historic moment for me, and it was very exciting to see him.
ES: After the wall fell, what part of Berlin did you want to live in and why?
RM: After the wall fell I had lots of eastern Berlin friends so I was going back and forth, and pretty soon the sides didnâ€™t really matter to me, and east Berlin was like a foreign city to me. Like every foreign city you want to explore it and there was a certain excitement, but overall I felt more comfortable, and I felt that the western side was more of a home to me.
ES: If you couldâ€™ve done something different on November 9th what would you have changed or done? Can you give any examples?
RM: I think I would have liked to go to one of the checkpoints the night of the fall even though i’m not a crowd person, and I think that is the only thing that I would have done differently.
ES: Did you or do you in any ways wish that the wall remained? Explain?
RM: Well its easy to say I mean for me iâ€™m glad its gone because I can freely travel I have access to different places in eastern Berlin, I can see friends I can see family, I can go and do anything without having the fear of the military taking over. Economically I am fortunate to have a very interesting job, and to be in a financial situation that supported me. But once again there are people that were in their fifties, and when unification came they had a hard time coping with the transformation process. And as for me I think I was at the right age for an East Berliner to cope with the transformation process, but yet again I donâ€™t want to see the wall go up again.
ES: In 1989, did you feel that Germany immediately unified or could you tell that it would take some time for Germany to become one whole?
RM: I actually did think it would take a long time, but now were are 15, 17 years from the fall of the wall, and you can still sense not from going places, because they look alike, the east looks like the west, and a lot of mentalities are still different. But then again it still has to do with the fact that some regions are having a hard time economically, and the people are not so enthused about now living in the west, and being capitalist and they are looking back to the old east German days and glorifying those days.
ES: And now 18 years later, what significant differenced so you notice in Berlin since Germany had been reunited? In what ways id Berlin a better place? In what ways is it perhaps a less desirable city?
RM: First of all I think it is a very different place, it had become more dynamic, and itâ€™s very attractive, attracting a lot of people, and there are a lot of places in the city offering a lot of good opportunities seeing that it is a capital. There are a lot of the decision makes, and the rates are low, and itâ€™s very easy to start of a business. But whets more difficult are that the city is dividing itself socially, you have neighborhoods before the unification where there are a high number of foreigners. And there is a social division now.
ES: Thank you very much; I am very thankful for your time.

By: Marvin Winter

Marvin Winter — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 22:35:42 +0000

Interview:
S: Sabine Oelmann
M: Marvin Winter
M: Ok, please take a few moments to introduce yourself. Start from where you were raised and briefly sketch your life to the present.
S: My name is Sabine Oelmann, I am 41 years old. I am a Journalist and Iâ€™m born and raised in Berlin, in Berlin West.
M: Okay, good. Here, â€¦UHM On November 9th 1989 when the wall fell, how did you find out and what was the situation you were in when it happened?
S: Well I was about to go to sleep and I found out at the TV, because I couldnâ€™t believe it and I think everybody couldnâ€™t believe it so they just left the TV running to have a look and to find out and that was how I found out, by TV.
M: And who were you with? Were you with friends?
S: No I was with my boyfriend at this time. (Smiles)
M: Okay. (She laughs) So you were also with your boyfriend during the night when the wall fell?
S: Yes. (both laugh)
M: Okay good. You were, you were in west Berlin when all of this happened?
S: Uh huh.
M: How did you feel about all of this when the Berlin wall first crumbled? When the first people crossed what were your like first emotions?
S: Well it was very exciting and unbelievable, it was a picture uh one could never could forget. And I didnâ€™t forget it and if I see any pictures from this period from this time I always still get â€˜â€™GÃ¤nsehautâ€™â€™?
M: Goosebumps.
S: Yes, I still have that.
M: Ok and uh are there any words any specific words u can connect to the feeling this day brought you?
S: Incredible, exciting, unbelievable and finally, because the people in the east, eastside of Germany, they were working quite hard to get this done and I think some politicians as well.
M: Were you like happy about it? Like really happy or were you still a little sceptical.
S: At first I was very happy but at the same I was still very sceptical because I thought this, this felt like a dream and but everybody new this was real but I felt sceptical about this.
M: Okayâ€¦(cuts me off)
S: I always thought how it is going to be. Thereâ€™s coming lots of millions of people who want to see how it is in Germany, west Germany and how will we how can we take them how can we full fill there dreams?
M: Mhmm
S: And it was hard, and itâ€™s still hard.
M: Yeah, uhm, so the day the wall fell or in the course of the next couple of days did you see anybody, someone you knew, from the other side and how did you feel when youâ€™re first saw them what was the emotions.
S: Well I have relatives in east Berlin and I didnâ€™t see them. I think I saw everybody else but not those relatives. Because uhm, I donâ€™t know, they were elder and I didnâ€™t need them but uhm everybody I think everybody in west Berlin went to the wall or where the wall (sighs) stood and uhm, just welcomed those people. You had to go there you had to be there to convince yourself with your own eyes.
M: That it happened?
S: Yes that it happened. So everybody went there, I went there too the next days I canâ€™t say how often but I think everyday.
M: You would go to the wall?
S: Yes.
M: Just to seeâ€¦ Like thatâ€™s what(cuts me off again)
S: Just to see. Yes because then I was a student and I had more time to go to the wall then. (laughs)
M: Okay, okay uhmâ€¦Were you scared of any prejudice the other side could have had? Like when you first passed through the wall were you like scared of what the other might think of you?
S: No, but in the mean time there were some years where you could see if someone was east or west German because of the clothes they were wearing. But in the first few years no one cared because it was clear.
M: What were they dressed like? Were the clothes completely different?
S: Yes they werenâ€™t as fashionable as the clothes in the west. Older clothes maybe, other clothes other style. More suits not so many jeans not the jeans we had in the west.
M: So if you put a west and east Berliner next to each other one could immediately say which one is which?
S: Yes one could have. But I didnâ€™t think they would be prejudice.
M: After the wall fell did you still want to be in west Berlin or did you have an urge to move to east Berlin or be with the east Berlin people?
S: No I’m a typical west Berliner. I like west Berlin Iâ€™m working in Mitte and I really like to be there, 19 years ago I didnâ€™t feel the need to move there. It was like a different world. The streets were different cause of the cars. The smell was different.
M: Really the smell.
S: Yes the smell. There was a certain smog covering east Berlin, once I was with my girlfriends and we werenâ€™t aloud to drive cause of the smog.
M: Wow thatâ€™s crazy
S: Yes
M: When the wall fell were you kind of scared that your future might be jeopardized?
S: NO
M: Not at all?
S: No not at all. I just felt that was good for the east Germans, I think thatâ€™s what everybody felt. No I wasnâ€™t scared.
M: Was there anything you saw changed right away.
S: Jobless people almost didnâ€™t exist in those times. Some years later you noticed it with the jobs but not right away. They were always cheaper then west Berliners.
S: Another funny thing was one winter when I went skiing in Italy with my family we met east Germans and this wasnâ€™t possible in the years before so it was rather awkward hearing a saxonian accent on the mountain.
M: So you also think it was a perfect time for the wall to fall?
S: No I think it was almost to late, there were so many possibilities to open the wall and I think there were moments in history when it got dangerous, the people were so unhappy with there lives, it was absolutely clear that they were unhappy. But like 2 years earlier 3 years or 5 years earlier would have been the right time too
M: Alright yeah, so do you wish that the wall would still be up?
S: No that is a joke. Some people take it serious but no I donâ€™t want it.
M: Ok so nowadays can you still see segregation between east and west?
S: There is still a difference between them getting paid, thereâ€™s still segregation. Some places in east Germany are built up again like Leipzig, Dresden etc. but there are some parts where nothing has been done but that is true for west Germany to they say all the money goes to east Germany, sort of a jealousy. But itâ€™s different in Berlin, itâ€™s a big â€˜â€™MELTING POTâ€™â€™.
M: So you think Berlin is very unified already?
S: Well I think Berlin is the most unified place in Germany, I think uhm, here are the most people that wanted to leave east Germany and maybe its to restart here. You didnâ€™t see as many, barely any east Germans in the other west German big cities. It was like an attraction when they first came to West Germany.
M: So what do you think is the biggest change you noticed.
S: when we west Berliners wanted to travel we always had to pass through the wall. And then we drove through east Berlin. We would have to wait at the boarders for hours until they checked us for illegal items.
M: what was illegal in there eyes?
S: anything from the west ,magazines, cassettes, clothes and newspapers. I can remember when I visited my family in east Berlin, we would have to look in our car to make sure we didnâ€™t have any illegal things in our car. It was always exciting for me and my brother but my parents were angry. We always had to be back before midnight.
M: Did you ever see anybody get busted for smuggling goods or people?
S: Yes one time a man tried to sneak his children out of east Berlin and he got caught.
M: What did they do to him?
S: He was arrested and the kids were taken back to the mother I think.
M: Did your family in the east ever want to sneak over?
S: I think the younger ones yes, but the older ones I think were used to this. They didnâ€™t talk to us about running away. And some people were aloud to leave the east, if you were 60 and your family was having a big party in the west you were aloud to go for a couple of days.
M: But how could they make sure that they would come back?
S: They only let them go if they had family that was still in the east or were known for good behaviour. IF they had the feeling yeah they wan to go back, then they would let them.
M: Do you think East and West Germany are still very different? Like from the culture, but also if you would go from west to east Berlin nowadays could you still see differences?
S: Its hard to say that for Berlin because I think Berlin is really draw together but if you go to like other parts of east Germany I think you can still see differences. But I donâ€™t think you can say: â€œoh this is east Berlin and oh this is west Berlin!â€ because they arenâ€™t to different I know whatâ€™s east and west because I know where the wall was. When I was smaller we would go with our school to the boarder look across and see the east Berliners smiling and waving at us.
M: Wow was that weird for you?
S: Yes that was weird it was like a zoo. Its like we were an island in the sea of East Berliners.
M: So if you wanted to leave west Berlin you would still have to go through boarders no matter where you exited?
S: Yes thatâ€™s true.
M: Did they ever not let you pass through?
S: Well it depended on the control guy you got, if he was kind of nice he would let you pass if he was an A**hole he wouldnâ€™t. I think if your working on the wall as an officer, and your aloud to shoot people who try to cross, then youâ€™re an a**hole. You have to have something in you that your willing to be a murder, maybe.
M: If you were a western politician what would you have done differently to maybe have made it fallen quicker?
S: Thatâ€™s really difficult because there were politicians like Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt oh always had the goal to reunite Germany but you always had to be so careful because of the relationships with Russia. But what I would have done different is opened the wall sooner. It was ridiculous, the so called Monday demonstrationsâ€¦.
M: Every Monday?
S: Yes when it got closer and closer to the fall of wall these were held almost every Monday.
M: So like rallies.
S: AT the end it was every Monday, and there were like some people who couldnâ€™t stand the situation they were in so they came together to protest against the communistic regime.
M: Was there a specific leader?
S: Yes, I have to think of the name, Iâ€™m sorry I cant remember.
M: Were there any violent protests?
S: No, mostly peaceful, but I wasnâ€™t there I wasnâ€™t in East Berlin during this uprisings so I donâ€™t know if they got violent, how many people gut hurt.
S: There was a time when the GDR government would use friends of suspicious people to tell on them and be backstabbers.
M: Friends? Talk about good friends! (she laughs)
S: Yes they would use the friends or family to find out information and then if the person they were spying on would get to dangerous for the state they would setup cameras in there houses and listen to there telephone conversations.
M: Ok now for the last part of this interview: Is there anything that young people, who werenâ€™t alive when the wall fell, should know that could help them grow up with the knowledge?
S: Well can you imagine that?
M: I know what you mean and its crazy what the Russians did to the Germans but Iâ€™m not completely informed.
S: Well when I went to Spain in 1987 and we were in a bar and watching TV the news showed how bad it was getting around Berlin, and I felt something that made feel like west Berlin was more disconnected from the world then ever, I thought I was never going to be able to go back, I thought that was it. I donâ€™t know why it was like this but it must have been some demonstrations or riots. Wait what was the question?
M: (laughs) Uhm What message do you want to give to young people around the world to inform them.
S: Well I think one should do what he or she thinks is right, follow there own will and not be a foolish follower.
M: So youâ€™re saying that kids shouldnâ€™t just be part of a flock of sheep but they should be the shepherd and take over the initiative?
S: Yes they need to use there head.
M: And not just follow.
S: Yes! To think about it, and not just do what people tell you.
M: Yeah not just like if 10 people say do this then do it, go you own direction if you must.
S: If you think the other direction is the right one then do it and I know this is hard sometimes because u want to be part of a group, but if you have the slightest feeling something could be wrong question it and do something about it, donâ€™t just follow and look. Because if you donâ€™t then it might be to late and youâ€™ll be sucked in.
M: Good, thank you
S: thatâ€™s it?
M: Yeah thatâ€™s it.
S: Ok thank you

By: Dylan

Dylan — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:49:50 +0000

Oral History of the Fall of the Wall
Interview
Interviewer: Dylan Reilly
Interviewee: Dr. Ulrich Shurman
Date: 2-12-07
DR: Would you please introduce yourself?
US: I am the principal of the John F. Kennedy School, Ulrich Sherman. Born in Berlin, lived almost all my life here.
DR: Okay. And on what side of the wall were you living at?
US: I was born in the British sector and lived most of the time in the American sector of Berlin, thatâ€™s West Berlin of course.
DR: And can you recall your opinions when the wall went up?
US: You couldâ€¦ well, obviously people in Berlin could tell that there was more tension in and around Berlin, and the fact that the Wall was built was something we Berliners did not expect. It came as a shock. I remember exactly the day, visiting a school friend, on that Sunday, the 13th of August, his mom coming into the room and saying, â€œHey, turn on the radio. They are building a wall.â€ Or, â€œThey are closing Berlin off.â€ I donâ€™t think that anyone used the term Wall yet, because at the very beginning it was barbed wire, they were starting with these rolls of barbed wire. At some places they right away started with a, with a wall. Itâ€™s not the Wall we know later on, you know, but it was reallyâ€¦individual stones being put next to, one on top of the other. These concrete parts came later, replaced them practically, in order to make it even more difficult to overcome the Wall.
DR: Okay, and you said earlier that you had family living over there, or friends?
US: Yes. So um, we had relatives in the Eastern sector. My mother, my grandmother, they both had friends in East Berlin, and so as children we were used to of course spend a lot of family get-togethers either on this side or on that side of what later was to be the Wall. I distinctly remember that one of the Christmas holidays, we always went in East Berlin with an aunt because it was her birthday at the same time, and going over the S-Bahn, crossing the border, you could see that as soon as you came close to the border there was tension in the train. You could feel that people felt uneasy, because either the gifts you were taking over you didnâ€™t know: Is everything okay? Is everything something they would approve of, or would they confiscate something? Even so there were no regular border controls, it was just by chance. You could see that on all train stations there was East German police, and they were attentively watching all trains going in and going out, and they would sort of randomly select people for control. And also when you walked over the border, you had friends living very close to the border where you could just walk over, and it could happen that you would be stopped and asked for identification, and then they would maybe say, â€œOpen your bag,â€ or whatever you were carrying. Or they would normally would ask for the purse, things like that. But it didnâ€™t, it wasnâ€™t a regular control system, but they tried to figure out who looks lie either he is either carrying newspapers over, that was forbidden of course, it was um, the East Germans looked at it as capitalist propaganda, and of course books. They didnâ€™t like you to bring over thins like that. And they wouldnâ€™t of course, East German money, they claimed that the value of the East German mark equals the West German currency, which of course wasnâ€™t the case. On the black market or the money exchange shops you would get an exchange rate of one to four or, at a time, one to five. So they considered bringing East German money which you hadnâ€™t changed in West Berlin as illegal, you know, into the GDR. Because, of course, it made it easy for you to shop there, and to bring goods over to West Berlin, and things were scarce in East Germany. So, ja, they thought you were violating customs laws, you know, things like that. Thatâ€™s why they did these random checks and controls. But that was really very very difficult, you see, how long that borderline was, right in the middle of a city, and it normally, the border was always a street, you know, and you could always say this side of the street is East Berlin and the other side of the street is West Berlin. So you practically have to have border controls everywhere, which was not doable, thatâ€™s why, of course, they have decided to build the Wall. And you could tell, well I was a kid at the time, but you could tell that, uh, certain things you wouldnâ€™t say in East Germany. Also we as kids were trained not to make certain political comments on the way over, just to make, maybe would have just said them in order to appear funny or something, you know. Um, because one never knew how others would react. You never knew whether you were sitting at a family table, is there someone who is reporting things out, so you could tell that people in East Berlin wouldnâ€™t say everything, you know, it was totally different than if the family gathering was in West Berlin where everyone felt okay, we are all free and no one cares what you say or what kind of comments you do. You could say itâ€™s all terrible over there, or, things are so scarce, or whatever, and no one would care.
DR: I know I asked you this before, but did you find any military presence in West Berlin? How did you find the American military presence?
US: The most normal thing. Thatâ€™s the amazing thing, that we, we as kids, I didnâ€™t feel there need to be German soldiers or German military. It was the most normal thing to know there was American military, British military, French military, and um, we didnâ€™t see them as enemies but as protectors of the freedom of West Berlin. They were our protecting powers.
DR: Okay. How did you find the politics of East Berlin? What did you think of it?
US: Of course we were all pro-West sort of in doctrine [indoctrinated?]. There was no question that we didnâ€™t try to objectively look at the East. It was a dictatorship, it was awful, and we disliked it. Even in cases where they said might have, you know, where people might have benefited from certain aspects, it was just all bad, and Communism was bad, and we didnâ€™t want to know anything about it. That changed later when I was a university student, involved in the later sixties and all, and one took a closer look at Marx and his teachings and how Lenin has transformed them and what Stalinism meant. At that time it was, you know, we didnâ€™t differentiate, it was all bad. [Laughter.] And of course for the, to strengthen the spirit of West Berlin there were, there was a lot of political cabaret going on, which nowadays we donâ€™t have. We just survived on that spirit of confrontation. I remember that there was a very popular, um, radio broadcast with a veers [?], that was a radio station in the American sector, an American run program, they had a program once a month called die Indulane, actually The Islanders, and it all rotated about that West Berlin lived as a free island in the Red Sea, red standing for of course Communism, all surrounding us. And um probably the strongest times of that political cabaret were, um, in the fifties, when the Wall wasnâ€™t there yet, but of course the confrontation was there, and I think it very much shaped what we felt or thought about the East. And, um, entire families would sit in front of that radio if that program was on. I remember that our entire, my brother and I no question together with my mom, my grandmom we would all sit there and and and listen to that radio program. Obviously it was just as funny for us young kids, ja, as it, my mom and my grandmom felt it was wonderful, you know. Um the way they would make fun of the leading communist elite over there [Laughter.]
DR: Okay, and then you mentioned your school, did you notice a change in schooling? When the Wall fell?
US: Sure. Sure as long as the Wall was there we felt there that confrontation. Um East West confrontation is one of the most burning issues in Germany, in Europe, therefore everybody had to know the two systems, and, uh, after that initial phase we thought people wouldnâ€™t seriously look at the communist pouch. Later on we felt that people really needed to be informed and therefore the teaching uh to understand the Soviet Union and to understand the German Democratic republic and the other East block states that was a very important ideology to learn the differences about Marxism, and Leninism, and Stalinism and post-Stalinism that was all part of our instruction to actually devote a full semester just to that topic of course uh that is not necessary now days because it is not an issue any longer, and of course we devoted um uh on the opposite um a lot of time to explain the West the ideology and Western philosophies and Western values. We also um there also was a always a course step by step describing the uh division of Germany and the farther drifting apart you know it didnâ€™t just happen with the wall, but it was sort of a step by step development and uh the uh airlift, the blockade of West Berlin in forty eight, forty seven, forty eight, the uh uplift of the blockade and then in the early fifties West Berliners were not allowed to travel to the Eastern Zone to East Germany. They still completely could freely travel to East Berlin, but not ja. So step by step you know uh the Kruschev ultimatum at the end of the fifties trying to force the Western powers out of West Berlin, when the Kruschev ultimatum failed, um, because the Westerners decided to stay, and then of course the Soviets turned to building the Wall and let Kruschev control that wall..
DR: At what point did you feel confident that the Wall was going to come down?
US: I donâ€™t really know whether one can say we felt confident. The fact that the Wall was open on the ninth of November, 1989 came as a big surprise. I mean that was unexpected that it was going to happen on that day. Andâ€¦ everyone here in Berlin will be able to tell you where he was, what he did, on the day the Wall was opened. But there were clear indications that obviously things had to change in the East bloc. Ever since Kruschev published his book Perestroika about openness, it was clear that allowing open discussions would probably lead to a different set-up of the East bloc. Of course you couldnâ€™t predict how things would happen and, but the fact that East Germans were not willing to follow Gorbachevâ€™s lead, Honneker was not willing at that time to do that, other Eastern leaders were willing to do that, like Hungary, Hungary was tearing down its wall into Austria, so people from East Germany tried to get to Hungary as an East bloc country, spend their summer vacation there, and then cross the border into Austria and eventually into West Germany.. SO the GDR was forced to deny any visa for Hungary even though it was looked upon as a brother country. Then people tried to get into Czechoslovakia, tried to use [drugs?] as a means to get into the West, that famous incident with the German Embassy in Prague with thousands of people gathered [incomprehensible] negotiations, our Foreign Secretary, Hans [?] at that time, you know, the famous, his famous words when he appeared in the balcony at that embassy, to tell the people that they would get a free ride into the West, you know, a train ride into the West, so you could tell there was unrest. The GDR was obviously unable to control that any longer. Gorbachev came on the third of October, the 40th anniversary of the founding of the GDR, that was a national holiday, he came for the festivities, and he said who is too late will be punished, but I donâ€™t know whether thatâ€™s the correct translation into English, in German â€œWer kommt zu spÃ¤t, dem bestroft das leben.â€ And you could see and feel tat there were things going on which were unusual. Demonstrations, that it wasnâ€™t the normal parade but there were several demonstrations, and I tried to on that day to bring a group of Polish students and their teachers who have been guests of the Kennedy School back to the train station on Friedrichstrasse, the main East Berlin train station at that time, and they would not let me have access to the platform, which was unusual because it was a platform which you as a West Berliner would use for these international trains. And so you could tell by the amount of policemen at the train station that the situation was very tense. And so of course, ja, it was clear, something will happen, the GDR cannot survive the way that it survived for all that time. But you couldnâ€™t know how would they do it. What would they promise their people inside? Will they go as far as to, you know, really give them the freedom to travel, or would they eventually consent to free [incomprehensible], that was very difficult to say, and you never know wouldnâ€™t they just in the last minute to save their system use, um, their secret police, um, to sort of crash that movement force, like they did in the past, with the uprising in â€™53, the 17th of June â€™53, when they used Russian tanks to subdue that revolution, or the Prague spring in â€™68, you know, where they used tanks to restore order. They did that in â€™56 in Hungary, or twice in Poland. Would they return to such a policy? Or would they release [incomprehensible.]
DR: And is there anything else you would like to say aboutâ€¦?
US: The feeling you had when the Wall was up, thatâ€™s something thatâ€™s gone with East Germany. When the Wall was up for the first ten years, it was hardly possible for a West Berliner to make visits in the East. In the 60s there were two occasions, connected to the major holidays, where you could apply to enter the East. And then with the dÃ©tente policy in the early 70s, you could spend a number days in the East, but you had to apply for these visits. And actually every one of these visits were truly special moments. And really everyone who went over, you had to apply, you had to go to an office here. East Berlin would bring officers over to West Berlin to sit in these offices here, different places of West Berlin, and you could go there and apply for a visitorâ€™s pass, ja, on a certain day. Sometimes youâ€™d even have to mention what entrance you would use. There were more than one ways to get into the East. And then after a certain number of days, you could receive, you could go back and get your visitorâ€™s pass. Then, attached to it you had to have a list where you had to list, a form where you had to list all the gifts you were taking into the East. All the current currency you were carrying with you, you had to makes sure you had Eastern currency, but you had get that one to one in East Germany. And when we left East Germany again, or East Berlin, you had to again fill out the reverse side of that form, what all did you buy in the GDR and wanted to take back. And these visits, these border controls, were hilarious.
DR: Did you ever get a chance to go?
US: We, we did ja. Since we did have these friends and relatives, andâ€¦ we made a regular routine to go see some East Berlin, and some also then, a little bit south of Cutlas [?], whatâ€™s now the southern part of Brandenberg, and these were truly memorable tours, and the way these, the border controls, if we stayed more than just one day, we could stay overnight, very often it was the Pentecost days, to stay three days in the area called Die Lausitz [?], and then you had to check with the police in these areas, and get your visitorâ€™s pass stamped at the local police that your eally didnâ€™t use the time to go to other places when you were there. And to see these officers, you know, always a little bit dark, always a little bit shabby, to see these, the streets, old cities and it becameâ€¦ Well let me give you a few other examples. Once I had the chance to visit Wittenburg, you know, the place where Martin Luther lived and started the Reformation. Of course thatâ€™s a place where a lot of international visitors came. So the main street where all the sights everyone who wants to be in Martin Lutherâ€™s footsteps, you know, where they would walk, that was, um, very nice, like freshly renovated. If you were to take off any of the side streets, any of them, the city was a total [incomprehensible.] A similar thing in Strasund [?], on the Baltic, Since the Swedish Prime Minister intended to make a visit on a so-called â€œpeace tourâ€ in order to unify all states around the Baltic Sea to enter into one peace agreement. So he also came to the GDR, made his visit to Strasund to meet Honneker there. The market place, and the road from the harbour where he would come with a ferry boat across the Baltic to that major place, everything was renovated, the rest of the city was total [incomprehensible.] I mean itâ€™s the things like that you knowâ€¦
DR: Thank you very much.
US: Youâ€™re welcome.

By: Marcel Starfinger

Marcel Starfinger — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:29:41 +0000

Interview by Marcel Starfinger 10D Interviewee Siegfried Ponick
S My name is Siegfried Ponick I was born in Cottbus in 1923 i grew up in Stralsund and moved to Berlin after the second World War because the soviets wanted to arrest me, so I basically fled. i worked as a judge in Berlin Tempelhof for 35 years.
M Describe your family situation.
S I lived in West Berlin with my wife and my two sons in SÃ¼dende Steglitz my sister lived in the east and worked as a doctor there. My mother lived in Stralsund and later moved to the west near my families appartement due to her being a pensioner.
M: So itÂ´s obvious that several of your family members had to travel between the two nations. Was their an emotional effect?
S: Of course that was a great problem we always felt insecure being separated. But my mother lived near the s-bahn station AttilastraÃŸe so that she could visit my sister every 14 days. I bought a house in Hannover which made it possible for my mother to cross the border. The emotional factors were more of a problem for the grown ups. Although my older son did understand what happened and suffered when having to come back from the visits of my sister.
Can you further describe the issue of travelling?
S Yes we often met in Hungary during the vacation so that we could see my sister. For some reason the Soviets wanted to arrest me so I couldnâ€™t set a single foot on Russian territory without risking my life. But in Hungary that was possible.
M U mentioned that you bought a house in Hanover why didnâ€™t you move to Hanover with our family he you felt insecure in Berlin?
S I was a civil servant and I would have lost my job when moving to Hanover. German politicians tried to avoid a desertation of Berlin. Secondly the prices were fairly cheap in Berlin I mean who wants to buy a house or a property in a place surrounded by Soviets? But today I am very happy that I stayed here.
M What was the most terrible thing about the iron curtain for you and your family?
S: The most terrible thing was the separation of the family.
My grandmother adds: Stop talking about it I still dream of it today!
-Silence
S: There was other stuff that terrified me. Once we were on vacation and we were flying back to Berlin and suddenly the crew announced that due to political circumstances it would not be possible to land in west Berlin. I feared that we would have to land in Bulgaria or in the GDR somewhere and I was terrified because of me always having in the back of my head the fact that the soviets wanted to arrest me. In addition I couldnâ€™t even speak on the telephone with my own sister.
M: Did you ever insist on helping or did you help someone to get over the border?
S A colleague made me an offer to get my sister over back then we said â€œrÃ¼bermachenâ€. Probably because it sounded less frightening for us. Like I said a colleague offered me a safe opportunity to get my sister over. I told my sister but she rejected. As a doctor she didnâ€™t want to leave her patients and we feared the extreme punishment. Thatâ€™s how it went back then it was a great deal.
But I did help to get a friend of mine over the border. My wifeâ€™s cousin Herbert worked in the east in Saxony for the electrical industry or something. But he knew all about electricity. Everyone knew that skilled workers like him were needed in Berlin. He wasnâ€™t satisfied with his payment I the east. What I did was driving to DÃ¼ppel in Zehlendorf and I waited in my car with my son and my wife for Herbert who came from the east through the border at Kleinmachnow. What we did a couple of days before was getting some stuff out of his apartment. But we were all very nervous. But that was before 61. When he came over he was interrogated by the Americans possibly the CIA.
M: What motivated you to put yourself in such a dangerous situation?
S I wanted to help my relatives.
M did you disagree with the regime of the SED?
S Yes I did.
M Would speak about your everyday life and the separation interfering with it?
S Yes there were mostly disadvantages but some good parts to. East and west those were two different worlds in comparison to the east you could buy everything in the west. When I worked at the court at Anhalter-Bahnhof I often went over during lunch or after work and bought bread or sandwiches. Food was much cheaper back then.
M Did you get in contact with the Stasi or anything related to that or in your family?
S I didnâ€™t have anything to do with the Stasi and in my family we were all against the regime and the Stasi both the ones living in the west and those living in the east.
M Your son told you about his Stasi files that he received after demanding for them?
S Yes he did I looked at them.
M Did you send a letter as well to find about your possibly existing files?
S No I didnâ€™t and I wonâ€™t. That time is over and I donâ€™t want to get upset when reading them. That time is over.
M: Did you smuggle goods over the border or did you know anyone who did so?
S: Yes my mother always did she had a clever technique. Newspapers such as the â€œSpiegelâ€ were very valuable in the east. She put these newspapers or whatever on between or under her breasts and when the border officers insisted on examining her she became hysterical and said that if she got a heart attack during the examination she would blame the officers. It worked!
M What about propaganda and provocations of or on either sides?
S: The soviets had military jets fly over the Bundestag in Berlin during an important Conference. Of course they didnâ€™t want West Berlin to become of importance for western politics so they broke the windows of the Reichstag with their jets. We were terribly scared because at first we didnâ€™t know what was happening. I still remember the sound of the airplanes that did other things than just breaking windows, those airplanes used during the Second World War.
M: Ok thank you for your time and your will to speak to me grandpa!
S: Oh thank you for giving me the possibility to speak about it.

By: Marlon Bradtke

Marlon Bradtke — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 19:50:43 +0000

History Interview
B: Please take a few moments to introduce yourself. Start from where you were raised and briefly sketch your life to the present.
J: I was born in West Berlin 1950, and have spent most of my life, except for some excursions, in west Berlin as well. In the year 1989 I produced a TV magazine for SFB which was a scene magazine made for younger people. Itâ€™s name was 45 fever. We talked about all kinds of innovative topics, about somewhat weird but interesting people, which represented Berlins reputation very well: A place where you could experiment new ideas, for people who tried to do things different from the main stream, thatâ€™s what Berlin stood for since about the 70â€™s. So my job, was to search for something interesting, something new, or people that do something special.
On the 11. November 1989 I was invited to dinner from a friend of mine. We ate, chatted very long, and had a good time. She lived in a side street of the KurfÃ¼rstendamm. At about 1:30 or 2:00 in the morning, I left without having watched the news, TV, radio, or anything else. I went down the stairs, into ma car, and I will never forget what happened then: I drove the few meters to UhlandstraÃŸe and then down the kurfÃ¼rstendamm, where the cinema Paris is. And there were unbelievable, enormous masses of people. It was about 2 oâ€™clock in the morning. The entire Kudamm was flooded with people who bawled and shouted, like at a soccer match.
M: Similar to the Soccer world championship 2006 in Berlin?
J: Yes, but you must imagine, it was in the middle at the night, and are just on your way home, it was a normal workday. You wanted to go sleep now because tomorrow morning you would leave to work, as always. And at first when I arrived I didnâ€™t have a clue what was going on. So I parked my car, because it wasnâ€™t possible to drive down the kurfÃ¼rstendamm because of all the crowds, that where making noise, there was some music hear, some tones there, it was just an unbelievable atmosphere. So very soon I was told that the wall was open I a couldnâ€™t believe it. It was so out of time: Something had happened that you wouldnâ€™t ever had dreamed of. Something absolutely unexpected had happened, that turned the whole life in Berlin upside down. And you had the feeling, I think everybody had it, it was such a special aura, which made you feel like world history was happening here. Even today, when I talk about this, I feel a cold shiver run down my back and I get goose bumps. You had the felling that something extraordinary was happening. It felt like a miracle was happening. Because if you grew up in Berlin and always lived with the division and the felling that you got each time you drove down the StraÃŸe des 17. Junis, this beautiful, empty alee, that you will probably never, in your entire life time witness that this will become a street that leads behind and beyond the Brandenburger Tor.
I had talked very often about this, with many people, when we drove down this wonderful street. We always thought that we would never witness this, maybe in a 100 years or so the wall would fall, but we were extremely positive that this would happen during our life time. So I walked up and down the kudamm and talked with strangers, who were all cheering with champagne and what so ever. And after a while I drove home, and my current boyfriend was a nervous wreck and he was so worried about me because I came home at about 5:00 oâ€™clock in the morning and thatâ€™s normally not my style. When I came home I started realizing that this really was the beginning of a new era.
B: Your friend didnâ€™t know about the wall opening at the time you came home?
J: Oh yes, of coarse he knew. When I came home with sparkling eyes he was at first relieved, and then he said: O.K. now I have to go out and see this. So he went and also so the same astonishing masses and felt the same aura. He returned at about 8 in the morning even though he had to be at work at that time as well.
M: Please recall your opinions (of the time) towards the division of Berlin. Did you support the division? Why or why not? In your opinion, was the division of Berlin reasonable? Why or why not?
J: I think nobody thought that the wall was a good idea. Everybody thought it was sick, unnatural, and sign for great helplessness of the system, that cant rule, or act in a way that lets the people of this land wand to stay voluntarily. The wall was a permanent burden for us. You grew up in a city which ended after a few kilometres. Luckily Berlin has a lot of seas and woods, but it was a completely constrained situation. Travelling and everything was so much costlier and complicated. Because we didnâ€™t have a real surroundings. An we were always called islanders. Berlin was an island. It was internationally unique.
B: What kinds of restrictions did you have to face when travelling?
J: When I wanted to leave Berlin with the car, I had to wait in a long line. It was always a long line, no matter at what time of the day you came. You always had to wait, wait, wait until it was your turn to show your passport and so on. And you couldnâ€™t say anything wrong or something that could be seen as a provocation from any tiny angle or perspective. There were a lot of restrictions with luggage. Especially with music records. But also with all kinds of other things that they saw as dangerous or potentially harming to their political system. You always had a queasy feeling at the border. You always felt like they might find something â€œforbiddenâ€ from their perspective. Very often you would have to get out of the car, open your car trunk, and let them look for all kinds of these forbidden things. But they were mainly doing this routine to look if you were smuggling anybody in your trunk. You could reckon that every trip out of Berlin took about 1.5 hours longer because you had to stand at the border so long. But that is nothing compared to my childhood, where I had to stand 3-4 hours at the border because everybody and every corner was checked so carefully at that time. Awful! So this led to the conclusion that fewer people would want to drive out or into west Germany. I remember that in my childhood I always flew with the airplane. No matter if our travel destination was near or far. If we wanted to go to Hamburg, Hanover, or Munich for example, we took the plane instead of the car, only to avoid this terrible checking zone and the DDR at the borders. I didnâ€™t travel over to east Berlin that often. For example the German theatre or the Friedrichstadtpalast, or the Staatsoper, those were all places where you could go to.
But every time you wanted to go there you had to propose for papers first. That means that every time you wanted to go over to the east side, you had wait in a long line at a side street of Bahnhof Zoo and then propose for an entry permit. And when you were at the border of west/east Berlin, you got searched extremely thoroughly from top till bottom because they feared, or wanted to prevent that you were carrying books, music records or any other subversive things, that you may leave on the other side.
So this was again a ugly situation, that these truly stupid, sickening, narrow-minded idiots wanted and tried to dictate and rule over your life. Some people faced this very bravely and just tried to sit it out because they absolutely wanted to go shopping in east Berlin because of the cheap prices there. A lot of people also drove over to east Berlin because of its culture: Berliner ensemble, VolksbÃ¼hneâ€¦ A lot of people also wanted to buy books there because of their cheap price. Though I travelled rarely, I worked for a radio station called â€œSF Beatâ€, the prototype of â€œFritzâ€ and â€œradio1â€ in the 70â€™s, years before I worked for the TV (rbb). I also moderated this station, and had thousands of fans in east Berlin. Since the east Berliners could phone and write to you, I got a lot of mail from them. And sometimes I met up with them, and of coarse I always tried to bring them something from the western side. In most cases music records. Music records was â€œthe number one passionâ€ everything was about music, music, music, at that time. But we always tried to smuggle magazines clothes or records every time we went over to the other side. But I didnâ€™t have any family members in east Berlin.
M: So in fact you had some friends or made some friends in east Berlin?
J: No, not many, I did know some people from east Berlin which I met every now and then, but to be honest, I could live very good without east Berlin and the DDR . I didnâ€™t belong to those people who really had good friends on the other side.
Most of the times when I travelled I went to the western side of the world.
M: But wasnâ€™t it difficult or time consuming to go over the border to meet these contacts that you hade on the other side.
J: No, you see, it was always a little work related because of the radio station.
But to some it up I didnâ€™t have any private, good friends or contacts on the other side, and a lot of the people of my generation on the western side didnâ€™t have any friends there. We really lived in two completely different worlds. When families where split up or if you were political involved or so, that it was harder and a more difficult situation. But I didnâ€™t do and have these things.
M: How did you feel that the West was helping west Berlin? Or were they rather hurting it?
J: Of coarse they were helping us. The picture of America was much better and more admirable than today. Of coarse there was the Vietnam war or other negative things about America, but still the main attitude of America was great from our point of view. For most of the people America acted like an role model for us. America was something with which you liked to identify yourself. But we only noticed a part of America, we always notice the positive and wonderful America. Our perspective of America was created from the Hollywood America and the rock nâ€™ roll America. Of coarse we new that America also had racial segregation and discrimination. But we also knew that a lot of Americans didnâ€™t support these issues. And America was a middle class land for a very long time, even until the 80â€™s where the range from rich to poor wasnâ€™t presented to you that dramatic as it is the case now. So if you were at least a bit educated and socially involved, you noticed that the beautiful positive sides of America are as impressive as the negative sides as well.
M: Where you ever involved in any demonstrations of revolts against the system?
J: Well, revolts didnâ€™t exist in west Berlin. There were some collegian demonstrations from the younger people and I think I participated in one demonstration, but I wasnâ€™t that active. I guess I didnâ€™t belong to this 68 generation who demonstrated a lot.
M: Did you notice or hear about a lot of brutalities in the protests of the east especially?
J: The protests from the east werenâ€™t as heavy or brutal as you might think. I mean they were citizen movements. The evangelic church was kind of meeting place where a lot of people met. And only at the very end of the walls existence, in the middle of the cities, especially in Leipzig where the Monday-demonstrations begun, and that carried on to Berlin from there. But in Leipzig the whole thing took place first. So every Monday the met up for demonstrations, revolts, or any other things to stop the system. And the number of people involved increased very rapidly. And that continued in Berlin as well. But it wasnâ€™t that brutal. But everything was still pretty disciplined, far better than in most other countries which have demonstrations. On shortly after or while the whole thing increased in insensitivity and started really â€œboilingâ€, the 11. Of November was there.
M: Did you notice a lot of escapes or attempts to do so, before the wall fell?
J: Oh yes, uncountable attempts were made. A lot of tragically stories.
M: How did you know from these stories?
J: The media spread these stories a lot. And still today at many museums and at check point Charlie you can see how creative and tragically these attempts where. And there are also many movies about this. And we also witnessed the â€œwall deadâ€ people who were killed for attempting an escape. These were all big stories for the press which made clear what an obstinate system this was.
M: After the wall fell, did you feel the need to go to the eastern side, or did you rather want to stay west.
J: Yes I went to east Berlin. I think most of the people were just so curious and wanted to see this other side of the world. I mean I didnâ€™t really know east Berlin because I found it awful anyway. So I went over to the east, and the first thing you noticed was the smell. Since it was November, the houses had to be heated, and the east was still being heated with coal. If you were used to the west, neutral smell, you couldnâ€™t stand this awful smell. You couldnâ€™t believe that people could live hear. So in all these regions like Mite or Prenzlauer Berg, where we went, it smelled completely different that in the west. They also didnâ€™t have an environmental protection or anything like that. That was only the first thing, the smell, unbelievable. And then you have to imagine, we went through wedding, near to Carl Heinz Friedrich straÃŸe, and suddenly there wasnâ€™t any light there anymore. You have to imagine it smelled terrible and you didnâ€™t even have any light. And since it is pretty dark the entire November, it was always and everywhere just dark. Because, the whole culture there, there were at the most some cheap, cold, neon light lamps. But there was 0, absolutely no advertisement. Advertisement just didnâ€™t exist in this system. In the west you have bright lanterns on the streets and all the shops have light and everything seems pretty bright and nice there. But in the east they didnâ€™t have these nice lanterns, and there were only very few shops. There was about one tenth of the number of shops that the west side had. In living blocks, there where principally no shops at all. Shops where only in big alleys, and only very small and â€œmessyâ€. So there was no light, no advertisements, which lead to the fact that nothing colourful existed there. You must imagine, every house was grey. There was not one single house in Mitte for example that was not grey. The only exception was at Prenzlauer berg, Kollwitzplatz, HusebornstraÃŸe. This street was the only exception which they had renovated or made pretty as a showpiece street for the 750 years anniversary of Berlin. They renovated somewhere around 1985/1986. But they did this so poorly that 1989 everything looked run down again and brook apart already. Other than that, everything was extremely run down, chaotic, and where grey (pointing on my grey sweatshirt, and my even darker sweatshirt hood). And additional to all these horrible conditions it was extremely quiet because rarely cars where driving in the east. And those cars that did exist there, were all Trabiâ€™s, which smelled even worse that the heating coal. So it was a completely different world n which you entered. The difference was like night and day. Day being the west and night being the east.
M: Did you worry that all these east Berliners would come over to the west side and that the west would become overcrowded?
J: They all came over to the west. And I met up with some east Berliners at Prenzlauer Berg that did something interesting. East Berlin was a new region for my TV show, which looked for interesting, innovative, young people or things. And of coarse there were a lot of people who had some interesting funny, maybe a little wacko stores, or backyard restaurants. But also a lot of creative people that where involved with theatres and or art and so on. And so we came in contact with these people and this was a extremely exciting time because these people where so different because of the conditions they lived and grew up in. And you came from the west, and had to try to build up an atmosphere, a certain trust or chemistry to these people. You were always seen as the rich aunt from the west. We had trendy clothes and all kinds of extras and so on. And theyâ€¦ they didnâ€™t have anything. So you had to first build up an chemistry in order for a more or less trustful, open, conversation to take place. Thankfully this enabled pretty fast because most of the people I talked to already knew my show. My show was very hip in east Berlin and a lot of them watched it, because that way they could see how the west was like and what was going on outside of their small east Berlin â€œprisonâ€. I just had to say my name and that was like an code word for trust. They knew me from my show and so they felt more familiar and comfy because of that. The SF Beat was a pretty political orientated show and rather left. The radio was the medium that transmitted and connected the people the best because not everybody in the east had an TV. And even if you had an TV in the east you had to be very careful because you werenâ€™t aloud to watch all west programs, and if you get caught watching it, so for example if your children accidentally admitted that they know a movie or a TV series from the west, the parents immediately got in trouble. So the parents had to teach their kids not to tell anybody that they were watching a west show because it was illegal. You must imagine that, you sit there with your parents and they tell you: O.K. kid, weâ€™ll watch a TV program now, but you cant tell anyone.
M: In what specific ways did the wall opening change your life and the general life in west Berlin?
J: It changed my personal life, as well as my working life extremely, and for sure not positively. Of coarse it was great that we now had the possibility to live a normal life, to live in a city with borderland, and that Berlin has developed in this way is sensational. And you can only see this development positively. My working life changed a lot in the following ways: Because at that time I worked for the SFB and we didnâ€™t have a own complete TV program. We used to belong to the N3 program. So we worked together with the NDR and had small short programs which meant that we could make very expensive, good, and interesting TV programs. And we had really interesting topics to talk about. And after the wall opening they said: Now we are so important and famous, weâ€™ll open an own station, called the B1 TV. In addition, this meant that we had to produce about 12 hours a day of TV, with the same amount of money with which we used to produce only 3 hours a day. Therefore, we could not afford all these smaller, more interesting, ambitious programs and topics, and instead had to talk longer, about less interesting regional and interregional topics. So the TV station developed more of a quantitative class, rather that a qualitative one. Moreover, this was a major problem for me because I was always responsible for he quality. Then there was a fusion with SFB and ORB. And this is another thing that has changed my working life. For the Berliners in general, myself included because I am a permanent employee. Every Berliner who was permanently employed, received a Berlin-Zulage.
This means, that they received 15% of their income additionally. They received this because the whole city had to always be supported. You principally earned less in Berlin that in west or north Germany. And so the city subsidized every permanent working people. And after the wall opening this Berlin-Zulage got diminished extremely fast. This means that every permanent employee have earned 15% less in the diminishing process that lasted only 3 years until it was at 0%. Thatâ€™s a lot of money. On one side everything gets more expensive and on the other hand we earned less money. So the west Berliners had a difficult financial time after the wall fell. And this didnâ€™t change after a while. A lot of people were jobless. One reason for that is that most business companies employed east Berliners rather than west Berliners because they worked for less money. So already because of that a lot of west Berliner became jobless. This is especially harmful for immigrants, which is a problem that wasnâ€™t thought of for a very long time. The immigrants had a hard time because the east Berliners were rather xenophobic and were and still are kind of like the underdogs. But they obviously didnâ€™t see themselves that much as an underdog because they degraded the Turks for example as an even lower class than themselves. I read just recently, that more than half of all Berliner citizens have exchanged with other people. And thatâ€™s an unbelievable high percentage in such short time. A lot of people have moved to the bordering regions, a lot of people moved completely away in even further regions and more and more people, a lot of immigrants, moved in. A very big circulation or exchange took place to that time in Berlin.
M: So overall the wall opening rather caused damage to west Berlin?
J: No, I mean in the course of the world history, or the history of a single land, what do 10 or 15 years mean? And what does one single human and there individual fortune mean? When you look how this city, how Mitte for example has developed, what this city has become. We were always a little interesting and wacko in a positive way, but Berlin has become a city that is permanently changing and proceeding since 1989. And if you want to know a little about Berlin, you have to come to this city at least every 2 years because still so much is happening. I personally still get into the car with my family on some weekends and drive around to look what new things have happened in the different regions of Berlin. How architecturally things have changed, which run down monuments, houses, or other things have been renovated and build up again. In Treptow for example, or what they do at the seas, at the Spree, and so on. I still remember how I did a lot of reportages for the TV, where I had to look for places that where being renewed or rebuilt or renovated and so on. I had to report about Marzahn, Hellersdorf for example and interview people from there. I had to go through new prefabricated gigantic settlements and buildings. They gave the people infrastructure, built movie theatres, opened cafes there, in order for people to live properly in these sections or regions as well. So it was relatively good neighbourhood for the people living their. Then a lot of people moved away from these prefabricated houses and settled down in Brandenburg with their families. The only ones left were the poor people who didnâ€™t earn that much money. Because of these people who moved away from these houses, new even poorer people moved in. And so these regions changed again and became worse. So it always changes pretty quickly and chronically. But if you look at the Museumsinsel or Mitte, there is not one single house that hasnâ€™t been renovated. Most of them are even renovated really well. And all this has happened even though you have or had this great citizen exchanges from really poor proletarians to the upper class, to the international upper class. And so we can be lucky that we live in such a great city where all these proceedings and changes take place so rapidly. If you look at that you cant take care of every single individual who might have had a hard time for a certain period. But of coarse there are also many people who think that, for their individual fortune and life, their life would have been easier without the wall opening.
M: Would you say that east and west Berlin have reunited relatively quickly?
J: No, We are still producing a lot of programs where we see that the unification still hasnâ€™t completed entirely, that east west is still a big, meaningful, and current topic. We produced a program just recently at the 3rd of October, Day of German Unification, where the topic was, that young people about your age or a bit older, slowly start to ask their parents how life was during the division, how they lived, what where they allowed to do, what things were forbidden, how did you act, did you participate, did you support it, and so on. It took so long until the kids started to dare to ask these questions. In this connection you shouldnâ€™t forget that the teachers still are the same, the east teachers. They were all system eminent people. And just because the wall fell, there wasnâ€™t necessarily a big change in every region of Berlin. Thatâ€™s still a far cry from saying that every part has been renovated and is better now. There are still major east west differences. That those privileged people who have a nice life donâ€™t see this as a big issue is absolutely not true. Lets say for example you have parents in east Berlin who have a relatively well managed life and you are god in school, get taught at an Gymnasium, fly to America in the 11th grade. In Mitte, Pankow, Prenzlauer Berg, Fridrichshain, you have great schools where people from west and from north Berlin are all together. Those are situations where the east west segregation doesnâ€™t play that much a of a role. From that perspective you have exactly the same options and possibilities as a west kid has. But what goes on in the heads from the older east citizens, the parents and grand parents is a completely different mentality and formation or impression than in the heads of the west citizens. And thatâ€™s wont be over for a long time.
M: Did the State still favour the west from the east in any way?
J: Vice Versa. The east part got favoured, or at least had a lot more attention and investiones from the state because you had to renew and rebuild everything in the east, absolutely everything! Not only the houses, not only the things above the ground. You had to start under the ground. The entire underground supply system had to be renewed, all those wires and pipes. The telephone cables had to be renewed and in some places even installed for the first time. In the east, also most nobody had a telephone. Maybe every 7th person had one. So if you wanted to talk to somebody, you would have to walk to there house and hope that he would be home. So it started under the ground. Then came the streets and then finally the houses and the rest. So all the money that was planned on being invested in west Berlin, got redirected to the east. Everything! So all this means that the eat got rehabilitated and the west broke down slowly or at least couldnâ€™t maintain there standards anymore. And then after a while they realized that this is extremely unequal and you have to start caring for the west again as well. For many years all the money went to east Germany. Especially in Berlin.
M: So the state tried to hurry the unification by rehabilitating the east?
J: Yes, of coarse, they wanted unification to happen as quick as possible. To manage this task was extremely difficult also because you had a west and a east police.
The east policeman had an 42 hour week and only received 85% of the money where the west policeman had a 38.5 hour week had received 100%. And both of them patrolled together, in the same car. This was one of the remaining segregation issues east and west had to face.
M: Today, 18 years after the wall has fell, how or did Berlin become a better place ? In what ways has it perhaps become a less desirable city?
J: Berlin has absolutely become a better place. Berlin has become one of the most attractive cities in the world, for members of the educated classes from all over the world. Berlin is historically seen, a city which may compete with Paris in a few years. At least in regard to museums and so on. Berlin already impresses people from all over the world nowadays with those things we have to offer. They were treasures that come from the east, the capital of the DDR where they also did a lot for the high culture and so on. But also west Berlin, and the this whole new architecture and the cheap prices. Berlin is pretty cheap, which is also the reason why so many people come here because they have a lot ideas, a lot in their heads, but not so much in their wallets. The German Republic has become a 80 million republic, and so internationally, she competes at completely different, much higher standard. The role or the importance of Germany has entirely changed after 1989. We are an equal partner who has to take responsibility for ourselves. This involves that we have to also apply and participate ourselves in foreign countries as well. In situations, which we as a pacifistic raised and war disliking nation, tried to avoid until this time. So we get treated a lot more equal, but we are also a lot power fuller and get perceived much more.
M: Dou you still see segregations between east and west, maybe even racist issues?
J: Well, I think that is a question, which you cant answer that clearly. I donâ€™t think that there really are any racist issues. In all parts where people feel bad or have difficult times, it doesnâ€™t matter where, they want that other people feel worse, so that they are not the bottom class and have somebody on which they can pore over all their anger. They always need somebody who acts as an sacrifice for them. The thing which I have hard times understanding and coming along with, is that the east Berliners are still moaning and grumbling even though everything, I mean absolutely everything has been renewed for them, and that even though all these things have happened, that they still vote for the PDS. The political left side which brought them in this horrible situation of the time before 1989. I just cant understand why they vote this very same party. Yes, one has to admit that this party has changed but still has this basic belief, this basic destination of socialism. This party which moans about the capitalism which built up east Berlin. But other than that if you look at surveys, most of the people are glad that the wall fell and donâ€™t want it back anymore. And so I think that in about 20 years there will be a pretty good adjustment of equality between east and west. But one thing will never change, we have a demographic change in the new German states to expense of the future of these states, however the well educated, intelligent young people mainly go to the western states of Germany because overall they have better possibilities there and they earn more money there as well. So there will always stay a certain downward gradient except for Leipzig for example and Sachsen, so ThÃ¼ringen and all those regions, but I think the east side of Germany will always stay the poorer part of Germany more or less.
M: In conclusion, what should young people like me, who where not alive at the time of partition, know about the wall and its fall? What messages are most important for them to understand?
J: The most important thing, that I had to learn, that everybody had to learn, is that it really takes several generations after the wall opening to start thinking that we really are a united Republic, that east and west are similar. This style of the east, these people are mentally formed and influenced so differently from the western people.
Sometimes you donâ€™t notice this at all, but if you get to know certain east families better, or notice how they intuitively think it certain situations, than you notice e how deep these mental impressions are that they received at home, from the parents from the grand parents, just this very different way of looking at things because of different histories and different experiences. The West Berliner were raised very privileged in a way, but the east Berliners were privileged in a different way as well. The social system of the east, nobody could become jobless, you had an insurance that the state would permanently, at all times would take care of you. These privileges where very different from each other. The east took a lot of things for granted and didnâ€™t ask, what can I do in order for the state to not pay more than it takes in. In that perspective the east side was a lot more egoistic. Because this way of thinking, that you can only give away the amount of money that you take in, just didnâ€™t exist on the other side.
In case of doubt, they let the western side finance certain things like the high ways and so on. So these differences between east and west is really a very interesting topic which you can say a lot about. This is a topic, that just because 17 years or 18 years have past, it still isnâ€™t out of date.
M: So the West had more freedoms and possibilities, where the east was more controlled and ruled by the government or the system?
Y: Yes, the east, and this is also the reason why so many people are â€œeastalgicâ€ didnâ€™t want this freedom and these great possibilities. They werenâ€™t ready to develop freely. They wanted to live a small live in awareness that their neighbours are pretty much doing, feeling, and living the same life. That where those people who only had limited ambitions and felt comfy living a life in which everybody is more or less equal. But all those people who didnâ€™t want this or couldnâ€™t live with this because they had their own opinion and one ideas and didnâ€™t want to be controlled and taken care of from others. That were those people for which freedom really was important because they wanted to be aloud to express there ideas, say what they think, and state their own opinions. They also anted to have the freedom of doing things that seem normal for us today: watching TV shows, or movies that were produced out side of there borders. These people also didnâ€™t get along with the idea of spying on people like the Stasi did for example. Those people who wanted a little more than what the DDR Socialism gave or offered them. People who saw that there is a world out side their borders, and that there are undiscovered things or new things to them but also pools of ideas and possibilities. For all these kind of people this life was just absolutely unbearable.
But itâ€™s always the case, that the majority of people say, well actually it was real nice there, we had no worries, the state took care of everything. And for those people, the life in the west is obviously a lot more difficult. In the west you have more possibilities, but you also have more risks. And thatâ€™s also the reason why they still prefer this old socialism. Because the other life is a lot more exhausting and stressful.
So from that perspective these are 2 different cultures that are slowly approaching each other. The first point of approaching is where the people use their educational opportunities self consciously. Because then the east is equally successful to the west. And then after a while these differences blur out and donâ€™t play such a dramatic role anymore. But since Berlin and Brandenburg are such poor cities and the people still suffer so badly because of their living situation because they want to have everything much nicer than it is in reality. Sometimes because they donâ€™t have a job and so on. So they still are full of aggressions
M: Would you say that more people want this comfy regulated life, or does the majority rather prefer the revolutionary life or the freedom and possibilities and take the risks as a consequence to that?
J: Well one can argue very well about this question. Everybody says we are the nation and all of us went through the revolution. A lot of people didnâ€™t know what the wall opening really meant or how there life and future will change. Some people didnâ€™t even know what the west is like. Some of them imagined the west as a land of milk and honey, a paradise. They thought you could get anything real easy and for free. But later they noticed that its difficult in the west as well. Itâ€™s difficult to measure this in numbers and say which side has the majority. But basically, the system would have collapsed immediately in every case. The system would have been absolutely bankrupt if it wouldnâ€™t have been for 1989. So this government was extremely lucky because it was absolutely broke. And if you think further in terms of globalisation, they wouldnâ€™t even have earned half a point. And a lot of people also know this and because of that they are also glad that things happened the way they did. But it didnâ€™t turn out so idyllic as some people hoped it would.

By: Jeremy Hughes

Jeremy Hughes — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 18:24:06 +0000

Interview
Mr. Rath: I was born in the United States. I came here 1975 as a soldier. I stayed over here and I saw the wall when it was up; I saw the wall when it came down. I came out of the army before the wall was even down, in 1978. I worked by the British forces because I couldnâ€™t speak the German language. Then I joined the BSR, which is a trash company over here in Berlin, just cleaning the streets, thatâ€™s where Iâ€™m working at right now. Well, I just want to help this kid out with the questions he has about the wall.
Mrs Rath: Well Iâ€™m Johnâ€™s wife and Iâ€™m German. Born in Berlin, West in 1955. So, the wall came up, when I was 6 years old and I donâ€™t have many memories about it. But I do remember the day the wall came down. And Iâ€™ve been asked several times by tourists and friends if I saw the chance that the wall will ever come down and I actually denied it, because to me it seemed like the wall would be there forever.
Me: On November 9th, how did you find about the fall of the wall: TV, Radio Friends etc.?
Mrs. Rath: Okâ€¦ It was a Thursday morning and we got up like everyday to go to work and we had the radio running and the radio news said that the wall was down. And I said to my husband, â€œIt canâ€™t beâ€ because it sounded like an April-fools joke. So, we out into the street, and we lived down in Spandau, which is quite near to the wall and we saw all kinds of east carsâ€¦
Mr. Rath: Called Trabbies
Mrs. Rath: Called Trabbies and they were parked all over the streets; in none parking areas and it was only amazing. Nobody wanted to believe what actually happened.
Mr. Rath: We had my wifeâ€™s co-worker over at are house in the morning time and she left a note on her door in case one of these east people came over to see us; to see her, because they knew exactly where we were at; where she was at. She went over to our house and Iâ€™d say after about a half-hour being over there eating breakfast with us, the doorbell rang and a lot of east people came running up the stairs. She said to the people, â€œOh, you guys here?â€ â€œYeah the wall has come down.â€ She knew the wall was down. Then they were crying and taking each other in the arms. They were so happy to see each other, because the co-worker of my wife came over the wall had come down.
Mrs. Rath: Myself, I never had any relatives in the east. As far as I know, so we obviously had no contact and when those relatives came from my co-worker and they started crying, and hugging each other, and smiling, and laughing at the same time I really had goose bumps. I felt really attached to the moment and, in my eyes, for the very first time, I actually understood what it meant to be apart from each other for so many years.
Me: What was your first emotion that you felt, when you found out that Germany was reunited?
Mr. Rath: I was glad they reunited, but its also brought a lot of problems to Berlin and Germany itself. Theyâ€™re still trying to work out certain things: The unemployment went sky high, they wanted money from the west people, they took money away from us, theyâ€¦ I donâ€™t knowâ€¦ It was justâ€¦
Mrs. Rath: My first emotions were completely different. I didnâ€™t trust the situation. My head was completely scrambled. I didnâ€™t know if they might change everything again. If maybe they try to get the people back into the east. It wasnâ€™t a situation you would believe from one minute to the other; it did take a long time to understand what went on. Of course we watched TV and we saw the picture of people climbing the wall, how they hugged each other, how they celebrated with each other and it did bring up many positive emotions.
Mr. Rath: Well, me being an American citizen also being an ex-soldier when the wall came down, I was sitting there thinking about whatâ€™s the situation was going to be like with the Russian soldiers. What was going to happen with the American soldiers, the British soldiers, the French soldiers; what will happen to them all? Are they going to stay here, even though the wall is down or are they going to get rid of them, push them somewhere else? Well, theyâ€™ve got the Americans down in western Germany right now.
Me: After you heard the first news, you must have gone outside. How were the people reacting around?
Mr. Rath: They were overjoyed. They were all taking bottles of champagne and opening the bottles and saying â€œProstâ€ to everybody. It was, I could say, like a big party out in the streets. They were glad. They were back together again. They were reunited again as one and not divided up into two different groups.
Mrs. Rath: I realized that all the east people went to the stores to see what they could maybe buy and what kind of shopping they could do. After all they did get money, a kind welcome money, which was 100 DM per head and I went shopping and was looking for a blouse or some clothes to buy. An east woman next to me said, â€œOh, my money, my 100 Marks, is not enough. Can you give me some more because I would like to have this item here: Well, Iâ€™m honest, I did not give the money to her, because I would have had to give it to everybody right there and then.
Me: So, didnâ€™t you give her the money because you did not want to share with everybody or didnâ€™t you because you did not trust her enough?
Mrs. Rath: Oh, I would have trusted her, but in a way everybody would have asked for money, since they were kind of crazy about finally going shopping and getting things the West Berlin people had. My opinion is that I canâ€™t just give to one person. I need to give to everybody. Thatâ€™s why I didnâ€™t give her any money.
Mr.Rath: When the wall came down on Thursday and I went back to work on Monday, I was on my way and these couple of people came up to me, they were lined up in front of the banks, at least two blocks long, to get this money from the state and they kept saying to me, â€œwould you like to earn 20 Marks?â€ And I say, â€œhow am supposed to earn 20 Marks?â€ â€œWell go in there, tell them youâ€™re an east person, you want to get that money from them.â€ And I say, â€œIâ€™m an American citizen and I wonâ€™t do it. The East Germans also wanted to get rid of the Trabbie cars; they didnâ€™t have any power behind them. The West Berliners actually pulled the wool over the East Germans eyes and sold the cars for a lot of money. This also caused a lot of accidents because they didnâ€™t know how to get along with the horsepower of the cars. Thatâ€™s how the West Berlin people got rid of their old cars, so they could get new cars.
Me: Did all the East Berliners just want to buy new stuff, because they had been waiting a long time to get what the West had?
Mrs. Rath: Not necessarily new, but they wanted to get up to the standards the West people had.
Mr. Rath: But that was hard, because we worked our entire lives to build ourselves up the way we were. But they tried to do it all at once, quick. That canâ€™t happen.
Mrs. Rath: Lots these people, thatâ€™s what Iâ€™ve been told from them, did stack up money, West money, and kind of saved it and actually bought everything they could get their hands on. Starting with cars, as John already said, and it was pretty close to Christmas after all and everybody still got enough, but it was harder. The regular shopping wasnâ€™t as usually. The marked hadnâ€™t expected the wall to come down.
Me: Because of that was it hard for you to find anything?
Mrs. Rath: We recognized that there was kind of a hole. We got what was necessary to get, but we had to look longer, we had to go more often to cover our needs.
Mr. Rath: Christmas time, for example, they had these chocolate Santa Clauses and all the sweets the Germans have for their kids. We went a week before Christmas to get all the stuff. It was all sold out because all the Germans, west and East, did which was they went in and bought and they bought and they bought and they bought. So we didnâ€™t have anything to give our kids. But I finally found a store, after about 3 days of looking for it.
Me: When did you go over to east for the first time and if you didnâ€™t go over right away, was this caused by some sort of prejudice? How were the conditions that you saw?
Mrs. Rath: Wellâ€¦ It took me about 9 months until I finally made the decision to go and have a look. I was scared to find things, which I didnâ€™t want to see. And I always had in my mind that maybe someone would put the wall back up and not let me through again. So it did take quite a long time and when I finally did go over there, of course I went into a shopping centre and it was different, so much different, compared to ours, that they had no escalators, you had to walk stairs, you had the items; the same items stretched over a complete floor like pots and pans. Only very simple, noting special, nothing terrific, but cheapâ€¦ It was definitely cheap. Andâ€¦ the whole atmosphere made me sad, because it was so much different than in the West. Besides, I recognized that the buildings were old, kind of rotten, worn down. The streets wereâ€¦
Mr. Rath: There were craters in the road, man, big old holes in the road.
Mrs. Rath: The air was dirty from the east cars, because they used different gas and when you came back into the West you had a different smell; a fresher air than in the East.
Mr. Rath: Depended on which way the wind was blowing. (Chuckles)
It fascinated me how wide the streets were, that they had so much room, but still it seemed to me that nobody took care of the building and the conditions of the East Berlin city.
Mr. Rath: First time I went over after the wall came down, was when I drove the bus for the British and then for the BSR. My buddy asked me if I would like to drive this information bus that was going to start for the firm to get the people to ask us questions about our job: When they would come clean the streets, when theyâ€™d have to do this, when theyâ€™d have to do that. When I drove the bus and went over to the east for the first time, I was sort of scared to go over there, because I didnâ€™t know if I was going to have Russians around or soldiers or what was going to go on. Yeah, just like my wife said, the buildings were down, the roads werenâ€™t all that good. The people were friendly in a way, but strange. It was not the West Berlin people way. The way they live and talk, whatever, get along with you. They were just held back, shy, just not very open. Andâ€¦ that sort of gave me a funny feeling inside. I didnâ€™t know how to accept it right away, but now I donâ€™t have a problem with it.
Mrs. Rath: Besides, I noticed that when we went down there and spent the day in East Berlin, we wanted to eat something and tried to get into a restaurant and they just searched for the people they would like to have visiting the restaurant. They did not let everyone in. They let the West German people go and get coffee and cake or whatever, but the East people had to stand in line and waited outside. So, it even took the East people quite a while to change their attitude of service and hospitality.
Me: Why do you think the East Germans had to stand in line?
Mrs. Rath: At the time the wall was up everything you bought in the east was hard to get. So, for an example: oranges. In case they ever had oranges to sell, the people were standing in line for the men with oranges hours before they even showed up and then finally the oranges came, but they only lasted for 10 or 20 people, then they were sold out and nobody complained. The people who didnâ€™t get an orange went back home. It was usual. The same thing was in restaurants; only privileged people were allowed to go in and have coffee or cake or something to eat. They had to reserve their seats and if they were normal people like you and me, they maybe never got in. So, the East people were used to this and familiar with this, but as a West person I never had such contacts and I recognized that they still made this difference after nine months after the wall came down.
Me: When the wall came down, were you scared about what might change in your future?
Mrs. Rath: Well, I remember very well the speeches on the TV and radio, when the politicians said that it may take about 10 about 15 years until they maybe get equalized; the West and the East. I wondered what they meant. After all everybody had their job. I never had the idea that the whole industry and working possibilities died off in the East, because we knew that the East people had a guarantee on their job. I never believed that it changed so hard that all the manufactures

By: Merci

Merci — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 17:50:44 +0000

Merci:On What side of Berlin were you living on while the city was divided, and how did this affect you and your way of living?
Martina:I was living in West Berlin, it didnt really affect me since it was normal for me to be surronded by a wall. When my famiy traveld with a car to West Germany we always had to wait along time at the border to east Germany. Sometimes they checked the whole car and we always had to check the speed limit, when we traveld through east Germany because the east German police was hiding behind bushes to check the speed. If you got caught speeding you had to pay alot of money.
Merci:Please recall your opinions(of the time) towards the division of Berlin.Did you support the division?Why or why not? In you your opinion, was the division of Berlin reasonable? Why or why not?
Martina: At the time when the wall came down i was very happy about it. Later on i had doubts because we had to pay alot of money to rebuild east Germany. This money came out of everybodies paycheck.
Merci:How were children affected by the partiton of the city?
Martina:It was a normal situation for me. since i grew up in a divided city it was normal for me. I never thought about it how life would be without a wall. West Berlin attracted alot of tourists because they wanted to see the wall. Along the wall they built towers for the tourists to look over to the east side.
Merci: Can you provide examples of balant censorship/propaganda on either side?
Martina:there was a show called “Der Schwarze Kanal”.
Merci: How was this Propaganda?
Martina: It was a show that made the west look bad and the east good.
Merci:How, if at all, did tou resent the US military presence in Berlin?
Martina:Nope, i never resented them, i love the US military because i felt that they protected us.
Merci: How did you feel that the West was helping West Berlin? How were they hurting?
Martina:Thwy gave West Berliners more money for living in Berlin it was called “Berlin zulage”, it was a few 100 DM every month.
Merci:Do you think that the protests of the 1980’s among East Berliners were more to bring down the wall or to get more justice WITHIN the divided state? Explain?
Martina: I think it was more becuase the people wanted to be free, becuase they lived in a closed environment.
Merci: Did you hear Reagan’s speech? If you did, can you describe the initial reaction from the crowd when Reagan said,”Mr. Gorbachev,tear down this wall.”?
Martina:Yes, i did hear the speach, but i wasnt their, i think the crowd cheerd.
Merci:At what point did you feel confident that the country was going to be reunited? what happend to make you confident that reunification was on its way?
Martina: When they started protesting in the East every week and more and more people gatherd together. I felt like the people really wanted to be free.
9 November 1989
Merci:How did you find out about the fall of the wall? Where were you on the night of Nov.9.1989?Who were you with?
Martina:I was sick, i had the flu, i did not listen to radio ot watch television.My mother called me and let me know what was going on.
Merci:How did you feel?
Martina: I felt really happy for the East Germans?
and beyond…
Merci: Were you scared of any prejudices the other side could have had? What did you feel when you first passed through the wall?
Martina:No, i wasnt, i took a walk with my boyfriend and it was a wierd feeling to just continue on walking without any borders.
Merci:How were the living conditions on the other side? Were you suprised by the conditions in any ways?
Martina: Yes, i was suprised because it did not look very upcapped. Suprisingly we found bullet holes from World War II on some of the buildings.
Merci: What were the challenges that you personally faced after the wall fell?
Martina: I had to pay more taxes and the “Berlin Zulage”
Merci:After the wall fell, what part of Berlin did you want to live in and why?
Martina: I always wanted to live in West Berlin because thats where i grew up and thats where my family and friends were.
In Retrospect…
Merci:If you could’ve done something different on 9 November what would you change or would you change anything? Please give examples.
Martina:I wish i wouldn’t have been sick i would have been more part of the celebration that went on.
Merci: What did you think the advantages and the disadvantages of the division of Germany were?
Martina: The advantages were you recieved more money when you were working. West Berlin was a safer place. The disadvantages were that you were surronded by a wall and could not pass it.

By: Robin BÃ¤tz

Robin BÃ¤tz — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:24:52 +0000

Interviewer: Robin BÃ¤tz (RB)
Interviewees: Bettina Becker (BB) and her husband Matthias Schmelz (MS)
They want to make the interview together because they are not native English speakers
RB: Please take a few moments to introduce yourself. Start from where you were raised and briefly sketch your life to the present.
BB: My name is Bettina Becker. Iâ€˜m born in Hessen near by Frankfurt and I stayed there until I finished school. I was 18 years old when I went to Paris, one year as an au-pair and then I went for studies to Heidelberg. So Berlin as I get to knew it was to see my friends who came after school to Berlin for studies. Sometimes I stayed here for some weeks, the last time about two month during semester vacation, but I never lived here. Then finally we moved to Berlin about 12 years ago. We live in Kreuzberg and itâ€™s the area I know best, but I work in Prenzlauer Berg. Iâ€˜m a psychologist and I have a praxis on my own. There I have a lot of patients who come of the eastern part of Germany. so thatâ€™s the contact I have to eastern people.
MS: My name is Matthias Schmelz. Originally I grew up in North-Bavaria and stayed the most time as adult in Frankfurt and Heidelberg and since 12 years in Berlin. I am a psychologist, too, and work in the east part of Berlin. I live in the west part of Berlin, in Kreuzberg. Now I am interested to hear the questions.
RB: Wellâ€¦ Please recall your opinions towards the division of Berlin. Did you support the division? Why or why not? In your opinion, was the division of Berlin reasonable? Why or why not?
BB: While Berlin was divided I only came here to see my friends as I explained before, and I think the city was kind of special because it was like an island. There was a very special atmosphere, very freaky and a lot of people who came here didnâ€™t want to go to the military service, they were like party oriented .You could go by hitchhiking in the city and there was no â€œSperrstundeâ€, there was no limit how long the bars had open. In Heidelberg you had to go home at 12 o clock, the atmosphere was not so open. You didnâ€™t get in contact very easily. It was more difficult that in Berlin. This was for me very special but thatâ€™s not the political part, just the atmosphere of people living here.
RB: Please describe the conditions Berliners faced when traveling between the two sectors.
MS: Oh, I didnâ€™t catch the question exactlyâ€¦.
RB: Here it comes again: Please describe the conditions Berliners faced when traveling between the two sectors.
MS: I have relatives in Eastern Germany and especially in Eastern Berlin. One time, I think in 1988, I visited with my friend Martin BÃ¤tz an uncle of me, my mothers brother lived inâ€¦ oh cousin, not brother… lived in the Eastern part of Berlin as a physician. He had a summer escape like all East Berliners. It was a small hut in the city, just near the wall, in a small garden colony. So I had some contact to the east part.
RB: So you had family members and friends living on the other side. How did the division come between your friendships or your relations to family members?
MS: The contact was more formally, because you had to sign a form, to write some weeks before and get an invitation from the relatives to come there. You had to change money to go to the East. It was a lot of work, not so…. easy.
RB: How were children affected by the partition of the city?
BB: I canâ€™t tell anything about that.
MS: Me neither, we hadnâ€™t children at that time.
RB: ah okâ€¦ How, if at all, did you resent the US military presence in Berlin?
BB: I didnâ€™t remark it but I also havenâ€™t been that often in Berlin at that time.
MS: I just saw the Britishâ€¦ Ã¤h American military at Checkpoint Charlie but it was just a military exchange point. I think normal passengers had to go to Springer place to go over the border but Checkpoint Charlie was more an army point.
RB: Did you notice them in the city, the US military?
MS: No, but I saw them in Bavaria, in northern Bavariaâ€¦
RB: Ok, how did you feel that the West was helping West Berlin? How were they hurting?
MS: There was story telling of the â€œRosinenâ€ bomber and Berlin Tempelhof, but I think there was a financial transaction from West Germany to West Berlin to keep the western part of Berlin going. There was going a lot of money in the area. There was a lot of political interest to keep Berlin, but I didnâ€™t see really help of West Germany in daily action.
RB: Did you notice any protests in the 1980â€™s?
MS, BB: (both at the same time) No!
RB: Did you witness any outward aggression against the East German regime? If so, describe these and how they affected your opinions?
MS: I didnâ€™t know anyone who had aggressions against the eastern government.
RB: Do you know anything about anti soviet protests?
MS, BB: No!
RB: How did you find out about the fall of the wall? Where were you on the night of Nov. 9. 1989? Who were you with?
BB: I was at a friendâ€™s house in Heidelberg, we were watching TV and we did not believe what happened. It was a friend of mine, who lived at that time in Berlin, but she didnâ€™t come originally from Berlin, she came there for her studies, and at the fall of the wall she was in Heidelberg with me and she said:â€Oh I canâ€™t believe it. What happens in my city?â€
And it was a very strange feeling. Unbelievableâ€¦
MS: This is a funny thing that I spoke, I think, in September 1989 with a professorâ€¦ at that time I was employed at the university in Heidelberg and I spoke with a Swedish scientist. He asked me whether I could imagine that the both parts of Germany come together and I said:â€ I donâ€™t think I will live when this will happen. I canâ€™t imagine that this will happen, that both parts come together.â€ And then two month later the two parts of Germany came together and it was not believable. Before that I was very convinced that there was no way to unify west and East Germany.
RB: Describe the atmosphere when the wall came down in Heidelberg where you lived.
BB: I think a lot of people talked about this happening because it was a very German happening. It was incredible but the people I knew where from the western side of Germany. Not only from Heidelberg but also from Hamburg or from Munich. I have no family and I didnâ€™t know anybody from the eastern part and not from the corner, besides Matthias, or borderâ€¦we read newspapers and looked TV but then you didnâ€™t really feel it. I think there was no movement where East Germans came to Heidelberg. Perhaps the East Germans came to Giesen, where I originally came from. Formally it was the part where the people came, to be recorded in the western part when the border existed. But I was wondering that you didnâ€™t feel the movement
MS: I did feel a little bit uncomfortable because my relatives came over and I didnâ€™t have the chance to give presents to them. It was nice to have them in distance and send every now and then a package over, but I was not very happy to see them next to me because they came over to West Germany.
RB: Did you see any relatives on the day the wall fell?
MS: No, not on that day but later. But my mother told me, she is living in a little village that was very close to the border to East Germany (East and West Germany were not separated through a wall like Berlin but through a big fence), that when the people from the Eastern part of Germany could come to the Western part, the â€œTrabbisâ€ stand in line from the border to the next city in West-Germany. The people from the West brought them coffee and tea to their cars because it was very cold. All the people from the East wanted to see the shops in the West. It was a Sunday but the shop-owners opened their shops only for them.
RB: Were you scared of any prejudices the other side could have had? What did you feel when you first passed through the wall?
BB: I think it was a very unconventional atmosphere but there was not a lot of mixture, it was more the western people going there and having more to explore.
RB: How were the living conditions on the other side? Were you surprised by the conditions in any ways?
BB: At that moment I knew a little bit and now I know a lot because I have a lot of patients and they describe how they used to live. I was not surprised of the standard of living because I knew they had apartments without bathrooms, and that they didnâ€™t have a heating system and things like this. It was a standard that my grandparents used to have. I think it was a bit different of living together. There were very good things but also for me very strange things. They had for example â€œKitasâ€ for the children, so every woman could work. So the emancipation was better but they had as well to neglect their children. They had week-â€œKitasâ€ where you bring the children on Monday morning and pick them up on Friday after work. For me it would be very strange to be so less emotional. It was a very unemotional system. Or not system but society.
RB: Did you worry about your future (or that of your family) as a result of the fall of the wall? If so, how?
MS: No, not really. For a lot of people it was a chance to get new markets. I knew a lot of guys who sold their cars to the eastern part. So I wasnâ€™t afraid. I worked at a university as I mentioned and a lot of scientists got to the eastern universities to work there, so it was more a chance than a risk
RB: After the wall fell, when you moved here, did you have a specific part where you wanted to live?
MS: Well yes, when we came, it was in 1995, we moved to Kreuzberg because we knew it the best. We visited it a lot of times before and it was more familiar.
RB: What did it mean to you personally when the wall fall? Can you give a few examples of how your personal life changed?
BB: It didnâ€™t change my live at all!
MS. We lived at that time in Heidelberg so that I canâ€™t mention any change. My daily live wasnâ€™t really affected. But in the middle of the 90â€™s we decided to come to Berlin to get more involved with the political change and to get a better image of processes of eastern Germany and eastern Berlin especially.
RB: If you couldâ€™ve done something different on 9 November what would you change or would you change anything? Please give examples.
MS: Political?
RB: No, just would you have gone anywhere different?
BB, MS: No
RB: How did your perspective of the world change after the fall?
MS: Yes for me, like I mentioned, very very exciting in personal perspective to have so wrong estimation of the political situation. For me it was incredible to get a union for both parts so it was that everything was possible. I didnâ€™t think that the eastern part could break down so immediately. I was astonished to have wrong estimation of the political situation.
RB: Did the wall fall at the right time? Did it happen the right way?
MS: I think it was to late (laughs). It should have happened earlier because in our professional work we see a lot of strange biographic things because of the social and political things. A lot of people also our relatives were very strange. We spoke the same language but we couldnâ€™t share the same emotions. The people from the east were very materialistic and as I met them after the fall of the wall they just talked about where they are going to get their new television and their new car and where itâ€™s the cheapest and so we lost our relatives. Before we visited them every year and were together a week or two and after the wall breakdown there was no contact anymore because the first meeting with them was so strange that we didnâ€™t keep contact. Once I had to bring a TV from a dead family member to relatives of him and it was a really big and heavy TV, and as I came there and went the stairs up, they all said there he comes, there he comes, but they didnâ€™t mean me, they meant the TV. Then they took it really fast out of my hands and installed it and as they turned it on it didnâ€™t work. Then they all said that I stole the right TV and gave them the broken one. And that was a really strange experience for me.
RB: What do you think the advantages and the disadvantages of the division of Germany were?
BB: Of the division?
RB: Yes
MS: There was no advantage of the division. I think it was a catastrophe for the countryâ€¦
RB: â€¦and the disadvantages?
MS: There was separation of families how I told. In our family we lost half the family because my mother was grown up in the eastern part and came during the war to the western part and we lost family there. There was contact as the country was divided but the ways went different directions of our family.
RB: Did you (or do you), in any ways, wish that the wall remained?
BB: No
MS: No
RB: How did the fall of the wall affect you personally? How long it did take your life to feel â€œnormalâ€ after the fall of the wall?
MS: We both lived to far away to really get involved with that thing. There was no effect or no shock. We found it strange but there was no really change in our live.
BB: I wasnâ€™t involved either but I think even if the wall wouldnâ€™t have been build there wouldnâ€™t be more closeness to the eastern side because my family came from the western part for generations and even if the wall wouldnâ€™t have been build East Germany or Poland or Czech Republic would not be closer to me.
RB: In 1989, did you feel that Germany immediately unified or could you tell that it would take some time for Germany to become one whole?
BB: I think it still lasts on. I think itâ€™s not unified yet. Itâ€™s unified, perhaps, for the younger people and for those who have advantages but there are a lot of people who didnâ€™t take part in the unification, so I think for them itâ€™s still a disadvantage. They donâ€™t feel like a winner of the unification and I think it will last at least one or two generations because the people who are now young have parents who still feel and understand values like they used to be and thatâ€™s how they treat their children and the children of the children.
RB: Explain how well the east and west integrated after the wall came down? Describe some of the successes and failures of integration.
MS: I think in professional perspective there were some failures because companies in the eastern part and economy broke down, so a lot of companies of the west bought companies of the east and just used the companies so they wonâ€™t have any competition. For example in Sachsen, there lived most of my relatives; they all went to the western part so the eastern part didnâ€™t have a big benefit. It was wrong to break down the industry there.
BB: I think they didnâ€™t take care about the socialisation and mentality of the eastern part because there was the dictatorship of Hitler and then it was the second dictatorship so for generations they have not been socialised to be responsible for what they do. They didnâ€™t have to have an own opinion. They had to hide it. I think the mentality was: not to do to much, not to be seen to much. Thatâ€™s different to the mentality we have been educated in the western part. The eastern people just got thrown in the society of the western people. I think they should have moved in slowly.
RB: Is the economic status of East and West equal? If not, what can or should be done about this?
MS: The economic status is not equal but I donâ€™t know any solutionâ€¦
BB: I just can only say that the money you get from my work is a lot more than the money you get with the same job in the east. So why should you then work in the east when you can get more money for the same work in the western part of the country. I donâ€™t know if itâ€™s in other branches the same way. They could perhaps change this.
RB: Are formerly east and west sectors equally represented in the political arena?
MS: Sectors sounds like Berlin?
RB: Yes
MS: I think in Berlin the east and west are equal in representation.
RB: If you were a member of the German government from 1989-present, what would you have done differently to ease the transition to one Germany?
MS: I think it was wrong to catch people like Kohl. For example Poland and Czech Republic didnâ€™t get any money from the western countries and their economy, especially in Poland, the economy got better than in East Germany. I think they shouldnâ€™t have broken down their industries but looking more in which parts the eastern part could develop. And I think the eastern part didnâ€™t develop really.
RB: 18 years later, what significant differences do you notice in Berlin since Germany has been reunited? In what ways is Berlin a better place? In what ways is it perhaps a less desirable city?
BB: I think itâ€™s richer. I think you can feel it in Prenzlauer Berg it developed a lot. There is a lot of money put into bars and shops. Itâ€™s a very good development. And itâ€™s now an international capitol and it will develop further.
Disadvantagesâ€¦I think it was a very special place and itâ€™s a pity that it doesnâ€™t exist because it was this little island of slow motion and alternative thinking people. But I now recognize this tendency in East Germany, in Uckermark, because we go there often for vacation and I think a lot of searching and innovative people go there, making alternative farming and thatâ€™s good to have these different ways of life for this whole tendency.
RB: Would you describe Berlin as a â€œunifiedâ€ city today? Why or why not?
MS: Berlin is unified, yes. You can not identify whether people come from east or from west. Its older people were you can see where they come from and say for example this is an East German. But the city is normally mixed.
RB: What are the primary challenges facing Berlin today? How much are these challenges a result of the partition?
BB: I think Berlin is a poor city and thatâ€™s a problem because under a certain social limit itâ€™s difficult to live or difficult to change something. For a lot of people itâ€™s difficult to participate in developing the society because they are so poor. Itâ€™s a problem but at the same time thatâ€™s why rent is so low and a lot of artists come here. I know an artist working in Frankfurt or having his gallery there and living in Berlin because itâ€™s cheaper and thereâ€™s a big community of artists and thatâ€™s very inspirational for the atmosphere. A lot of people have jobs not in Berlin like to come here or have an apartment here because itâ€™s so cheap and to feel and take part in this atmosphere. For example a friend of Matthias was a photographer in New York and he was here in Berlin and he wanted to move to Berlin because here is so a good atmosphere.
RB: What is the primary challenge that needs to be met in order to unite Germany today?
BB: I donâ€™t know whether the problem of the not unification is still the problem of the division or itâ€™s like I said before the differences between the different areas. The Uckermark for example used to be poor the whole time. It didnâ€™t develop as good as the south part of Germany where the Romans were a long time ago. It isnâ€™t really a problem of the former DDR.
RB: In conclusion, what should young people today, who were not alive at the time of partition, know about the fall and its fall? What messages are most important for them to understand?
MS: I think the separation was unnatural, was very cruel for families, and for the nation it was a pity. But now you can not make it undone, so you have to know it but do the best with the thing, but I can not give any information or advises for young people.
BB: I think like you do. For Berliners it was a big change to be separated. For them it felt like before they could go to any place and now they could not. Or see some people they used to see before. Oh and I didnâ€™t say this. The separation of Germany has changed the process to work with the TRAUMA of the war and thatâ€™s a problem because they inhibited a little bit because they made a FEINDBILD of each other so they didnâ€™t see the inner conflict. The conflict was between the parts of Germany. And that changed the treatment. Itâ€™s perhaps interesting to understand why itâ€™s still an important theme because if I would be young I would ask myself why is it so important to think about this wall and about the Jewish thing and now itâ€™s a new area of thinking what happened before the division of Germany.
RB: Do you have some interesting stories to tell?
MS: Once as I visited relatives in Dresden, I went by car and I picked up a Russian soldier who hitchhiked and he spoke a little German. As I mentioned that Iâ€™m from the west he immediately asked me to stop and went out, and he said that he is not allowed to go with people from the west. It was very interesting for me to have this experience.
RB: Thank you for this interview and that you to took the time to answer my questions. I know it was hard for you to talk English but you did a great job.

By: TIMAAY (G)

TIMAAY (G) — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 20:26:03 +0000

Oral History Project
Interviewee: Fr. Iden (I)
Interviewer: Tim Geers (T)
Divided Berlin
T: Please take a few moments to introduce yourself. Start from where you were raised and briefly sketch your life to the present.
I: My name is Sylvia Iden, and I was born in 1961 in the year of the building of the wall. I was raised mostly by my mother because my father had his family in West Berlin, we were living in East Berlin, and he tried to get to West Berlin and he was captured, but he was held in prison for one and a half years before he went to West Berlin. So my mother and I were living together and I made the Abitur, went to university, became a teacher in 1985 and I was working in the East until 1995 working in elementary schools at normal 10 class school, most of them were 10 class schools, and at â€œGesamtschule.â€ After that I came here to the John F. Kennedy School in 1995 and up to now Iâ€™m working here.
T: So you said you lived on the east side of Berlin and how did this affect your way of living, or how did this affect you?
I: Since my family was exactly divided into two parts, on the east side my mother one of my aunts, one of my uncles, and on the west side my granny my father one of my uncles. There was always a coming and going, when they were allowed to come, no not a going not from our side because we from the east couldnâ€™t go to the west, but the people from the west could come to visit us. So there was always a kind of visits, not very often, but on a kind of regular basis. And it influenced my life because I was raised up at a socialist school and we were forced to be in organizations like the FDJ and if you had the backbone to refuse to go into those organizations you wouldnâ€™t be able to study, you wouldnâ€™t be able to get a good job. So it was very difficult to do things like that, so of course I was in those organizations. Since I was always connected to the west by my father it wasnâ€™t all that difficult for me to see the west side and to see the views or hear the views. For instance when I wanted to go to make Abitur to the next school as we called it the â€œErweiterte Oberschule,â€ it was a kind of Gymnasium, I wasnâ€™t allowed to go because I had a father in the west. So normally in the east you went to this Gymnasium from the 9th class on. So I was rejected to go there and I applied again after the 10th grade and because I was the best student in the whole school they had no choice but to let me go to that Gymnasium. Otherwise I donâ€™t know if they would have let me go.
T: So please recall your opinions towards the division of Berlin. Did you support the division and was this division of Berlin reasonable? Why or why not?
I: The problem was privately my family was the divided and because my father was over there as a small child when he was in prison I didnâ€™t know of it because I was to small to know. And later when I was lets say 8-9 years he didnâ€™t tell me and he just came for a visit and it was nice that he came to us that we met the whole family together. Privately I saw very much of the west, but in school I was raised by teachers who were neglecting the west, who didnâ€™t want to hear anything of it, and who were telling you only socialism is a good society. Imperialism and the West and West Germany are the enemy, the evil ones, we are not allowed to support them. Special historical events were not even brought up in our school, for instance the rise of the workers in 1953 in June was never an issue at school or the fact that Berlin was separated from West Berlin, from the rest of the Federal Republic and was not allowed to get any food or anything and where all those Rosinenbomber all those planes that were coming were not allowed to be talked about in school, you didnâ€™t find them in papers you didnâ€™t find them on tv you didnâ€™t find them anywhere. And you werenâ€™t allowed to ask about it either. Otherwise you would be looked at like a suspect. Whenever you said the truth about such things you were immediately classified as a bad one.
T: Can you please state why your father was in prison?
I: Just, thatâ€™s a funny fact, because he was thinking about going to the west because of his mother, and he was talking to one of those â€œFluchthilferâ€ the people who help other people across the border. And he found the project a bit dangerous so he told him look I donâ€™t like this idea, it was something with cars and my father was a bit afraid, so he said no lets not do it. He didnâ€™t know he was being watched and he took this man on the motorbike somewhere. That taking him to the next corner or just to the next street was the reason for them to say they cooperated with each other and thatâ€™s why he had to go to prison. I talked recently with my father and asked him about those things and he said the Stasi they forced him to be something like a spy for their side. So he was something like a double spy. From one side he was forced but he also wanted to do it but that makes it a bit difficult. He was divorced from my mom and met a new woman and he was already by that time living in the west and she was living in the east and because they wanted to get married and he wanted to take her over the border. So he packed her into a â€œFaÎ²â€, like a barrel and he put her on a truck and he claimed at the border he had to take something over to his friend and she was sitting inside. She was so afraid and I think it was a big thing for her to go over the border like that. With so many fears and so. But, they made it over successfully had two children and lived happily ever after for some time.
T: Getting over the border was quite difficult because of all these checkpoints right?
I: Of course. My uncle who was living in the west they were all living except my granny she had always lived in the west, no wait I have to tell you what happened before. When my granny and my grandpa were living together they were living in a big apartment, that apartment they gave it to my father. So my granny got divorced from my grandpa and moved where she had a hairdresser salon and was living nearby. My grandpa was living near our place but when his radio business didnâ€™t work so well he left to some where else. So this apartment was ours then and I was growing up there with my mother. My granny had lived from the early 50â€™s in the west. After the wall was built all of her children wanted to be near her and the first one to go across the border was one of my uncles. He made it in the night with two or three people. The first time they wanted to shoot them so they were so afraid they just ran back. Thinking they might get a bullet in their backs. Then they tried it again but in a safer way and went over the wall. He succeeded and the second one to go was my father. Who had to go to prison and then they asked him you want to stay in GDR and he said ah no I will go so he was the second. The third one was my aunt who had to go to prison twice because she wanted to go to the west. They said the same to her that she talked to those â€œFluchthilferâ€ and she stayed in prison for a total of 2 Â½ years. After that she made an application and had to wait for 5-6 years before she could leave, this was two years before the border went down. And in all those years she wasnâ€™t allowed to work. She painted things and sold them privately and was given money by family members. Only one of those brother and sisters stayed here in the east.
T: Since you said you had ties with your father in West Berlin at that time, how did you perceive the western views and politics?
I: Not so much because he didnâ€™t talk about it probably because he didnâ€™t want to endanger me. My mother was not talking about it, which was because I would probably go to the school and go no thatâ€™s wrong I heard it differently and this wasnâ€™t possible in those times. And in that time I wasnâ€™t so interested in politics anyway. Everything I heard came from school or newspapers. But these newspapers always had the same view. Of course when you read these you didnâ€™t think so much. And my family didnâ€™t teach me to talk about it because everything was censored.
T: Because the government did censor the media.
F: Of course everything was censored. Only when you could read in between the lines and you had the literature of some East German poets. Probably then you could understand that they didnâ€™t criticize the men but the entire society. But then you would already have the open mind to see something like that. For instance, if you read Casandra nowadays you know what she criticizes but back then you had no thought of it and it didnâ€™t mean so much to me. I didnâ€™t know of all those imprisonments that were being taken, but now after I went to Hohenschoenhausen to that prison to see the people themselves that were being imprisoned there just because of their views or because they were helping other people get out of the state.
T: Can you describe any other incidents with the Stasi?
I: My mother was being watched because first she was with my father and then with a man in a higher position like a general director. They were probably watching our whole family. When I became a teacher in 1985 I was talking very freely with my students, you know how my classes are mostly a free discussion, so once when I was talking about the division of Berlin the headmistress of our school just rushed inside our door without knocking or anything, and said what kind of students are you! How can you discuss this matter in such an anti-socialist way! How can you dare do something like this?! After that we realized that she was eavesdropping and after that we just made a joke out of this and when we discussed these topics I would always tell a student to sit by the door and keep watch.
T: Can you explain your opinion towards the government in your region. Was it a strong dictatorship? Was the Government disrespecting your rights?
I: The problem is you donâ€™t see the government when youâ€™re a small fish. What you do see is your boss. My bosses were the ones at school. Like this school director later told me my style of teaching is not the correct one I have to teach children in a socialist way. We were all forced to take part in a kind of a meeting and every second week we had to learn how the SED had developed and their results and how good they were. So you saw the government through your boss. And also the FDJ (Free German Youth) the whole class was in this organization and we had every second week to do regular things including going to the movies and such. The catch was that the students had to tell what they had been doing during the past year. Then I found that one of my students had been called to the FDJ â€œKreisleitungâ€ meaning that they had been questioning my student about what we did in class. So they were already asking students about their teachers and were making protocols. Even on the day the wall went down. We all went to the border in the first instruction ours, we came back and we were all so excited having dreams about what they would do when they crossed the border. And one of these kids who was also in FDJ was called later by one of the SED members. This girl was very clever and when they asked her about what they did in this morning she simply replied what do you think we did? We obviously had instruction. And then they couldnâ€™t say anything anymore. You see how they were asking children about their teacher.
T: Can you create a general attitude towards the Russian officers in Berlin?
I: The problem is I didnâ€™t see so many Russian officers because they left in the 50s. Only some of them stayed. And if you did they were always in separated areas. I was also too young to realize this yet.
Dissent and Revolt
T: How would you describe the protests of the 1980s?
I: Firstly I was living with a former teacher with mine who was in the party, second thing our newspapers didnâ€™t say a lot about it especially about people in the demonstrations. So I didnâ€™t think so much about, I didnâ€™t hear so much about it, I was busy with other things. I was amazed though about how the police went against the demonstrations. You heard about it, but you didnâ€™t pay attention to it. Probably because I thought no the wall is something very solid and big it canâ€™t just go down like that. You heard this so many times you started to believe it.
T: So you didnâ€™t engage yourself in any demonstrations?
I: No I didnâ€™t. Probably because of my husband with whom I never discussed such things.
T: Did you hear Reaganâ€™s speech demanding Mr.Gorbachev to tear down the wall?
I: No, I only heard Mr.Gorbachev speech which was highly discussed in our time. We all liked him because of his openness. He wasnâ€™t discussed openly such as in school. Only privately.
Dissent and Revolt
T: Do you think that protests couldâ€™ve reunited Germany earlier?
I: No, I donâ€™t think so because things have to develop. The dialogue between West and East had a development in the 70s nothing was possible. Until they made negotiations and I think it wouldâ€™ve been possible. Economically the GDR wasnâ€™t at the end yet but in 1989 there was almost no good working economy anymore and the government wasnâ€™t only compelled by demonstrations to open its border, but they knew that also economically they were going down.
T: At what point did you feel confident that the country would reunite?
I: I was never confident. When I heard of it on the 9th, it was something so unbelievable. I saw the crowds moving towards the border. It was just something unimaginable.
T: And when the wall fell describe the atmosphere.
I: It was too nice. You know what happened to us on that Friday? As I told you already we were talking the whole day only about that. We had a TV in our classroom only thinking they would bring some new information if we can go over the border yet. The children were happy the parents were happy I came home the same time my friend came. She said here letâ€™s go weâ€™re going to the west. We drove over the border and people were throwing bonbons and sweets at us. We went to her family and then we went to my father and the funny thing was the whole family including my mom and all my uncles and aunts and my granny were all meeting spontaneously at my fatherâ€™s place. The funny thing was you couldnâ€™t call anyone because the whole telephone system went to pieces and all everything was busy. Nothing was working on the telephone. The borders were already open on Thursday in the evening around ten. So my mother she saw it on TV and she put on her big jacket and went over the border. My father and his wife saw her at the border. So by chance at like 3-4 oâ€™clock in the morning they met each other.
T: When you did cross the border were you surprised?
I: No I was not astonished I knew everything already. And I had already gone to the West during the summer because my granny had her birthday.
T: After the wall fell which side of Berlin did you want to live in?
I: Iâ€™ll make it a story again, last month in October, by chance I found out my class of 77 is meeting again after 30 years. We had all grown up together and when I saw them I asked them where they lived. I was the only one who lived in the west, all the other were still living in the east. You know why because they have their family there. Also they have their job in the east. And if you ask me if I would want the wall back I would say NO NEVER!
T: What do you think the advantages and the disadvantages of the Berlin division were?
I: Were there any advantages?!
T: Depending on what your view isâ€¦
I: No there were no advantages, you know the only advantage is a historical one. The only thing is the allies had a right to divide Germany like that. The problem was that it was soâ€¦.at one point they created bases for their bases. An American base here a Russian base here and at one point probably created a center for crisis. So historically speaking there might have been a reason why they because they didnâ€™t want something like that ever to happen again so they put their possessions inside which was their right. On the other hand it was exactly the Russians on one side the Americans on the other side which had bin before allies but not after that in the cold war they were obviously against each other. So it was something that was an advantage and a disadvantage when it came to East, West problems. And I think the coming down of the wall and the scattering of the whole Russian system makes the entire thing much easier to handle world matters now. So I donâ€™t see really real advantage of having this wall built.
Challenges of Unification
T: And after the wall fell how long did it take your life to feel normal again?
I: It took some time because so many things were changing but, always step by step. The year after the money was changed in 1990 and then 1 Â½ years after the school types were changed not everything was for the good. We just took over everything we heard from the West. Ah â€œRealschuleâ€ we have to have that too. Ah Gymnasium we have to have that too. Not that we wanted to have it, we just got it. You have to make it like so you we made it like that. Now they are trying to build some of those 10 class schools again, like we are. We are a 13 class school, everything is developing together in a way which is a very nice thing for children to have an identification with their school and with their issues and so on which is better than I donâ€™t like this idea about â€œGrundschuleâ€ and then 3 or 4 types of different schools. I donâ€™t know if this is the right thing. This is one out of so many topics. But, I liked it after the wall. You know why? Because there werenâ€™t so many disadvantages for me. I was still a teacher, I was getting good money, I was still getting to be an official here. With a secured income to care for my children, I could travel wherever I wanted to I could see whenever I wanted to so there was no real disadvantage for me. Only the dangers of Capitalism of course they came to me. Like people that came up to me and say oh you should buy this and that you have to give money for real estate and of course I was so dumb not knowing anything what to do. And I made big mistakes in financial matters for instance.
T: Did you feel that Germany immediately reunified or could you tell it would take some time for Germany to reunite?
I: Oh I think it will take a very big time to be the sameâ€¦.it canâ€™t be equalâ€¦40 years are too long of a time to erase everything at once. It is not possible. And when you really go to the East like Mecklenburg and Sachsen. You can see the mentality is totally different and you can see the mentality is still like when it was in GDR. Not better. Not better. But more East. And many East people have lost their jobs because the wall came down. They were thinking the GDR is functioning so fine which wasnâ€™t a reality but they didnâ€™t know. They always had their job. Whoever wanted a job had a job. Now in Capitalism they were losing it and they were never getting one again like they were 50 or so. So of course when the wall was there I had a nice life and now I have to struggle for my daily life I donâ€™t get enough. So in a way it is understandable that they say it was better before. But I donâ€™t belong to those people.
T: And now 18 years later is Berlin a better place now?
I: For me Berlin is the best place. I would never live anywhere else.
T: What are the challenges Berlin is facing today?
I: I think the city has come closer together. West people had to go more to the East and East people had to go more into the West. There are some certain topics of ignorance which have to be talked freely about. Which have to be raised up more. Many people are so ignorant and they are looking only in one direction. Like they donâ€™t see so many views. We have such big chance with all those nationalities in this town and its such a colorful and I hate when someone is telling me ahh they are horrible foreigners or oh those shit Deutsche. I donâ€™t like such things. And this is probably speaking for every city. I think Berlin has the problem of the 40 years embracement of that wall. Because people felt secured there, they donâ€™t feel secured now. They want to put the blame on someone. They cant put the blame on the going down of the wall because of course they see in the shops so many nice things, which they canâ€™t get because they donâ€™t have money. So they want to put the blame on somebody. Of course itâ€™s the foreigners of course its somebody else, itâ€™s never me. So sometimes the social problems you can see more in a big city. Of course its erasing partly of the building of the wall.
T: And for our final question what do kids today have to know who werenâ€™t alive during the division of Berlin? What should they know and what should they understand?
I: I think everything I told you nowâ€¦itâ€™s a big big difference to live either in the West or in the East and to grow up like that. They have to know what it means to be in a dictatorship. They have to know that people are really being pursued and put into prison because they had another opinion. Something like that or a dictatorship like that should not happen anymore. If you think about South and North Korea itâ€™s nearly the same nowadays. So we have to be aware of such things. They shouldnâ€™t happen. Democracy is one of the best things we have.
ZE END