Die Mauer

In 1983 I visited Berlin on occasion of a school-trip. In fact we travelled by bus from the Dutch-German border, through the federal republic of Germany to the German Democratic Republic. In the GDR, I remember a long road paved with concrete. We, all children, didn't see any people in the gloomy and grey landscape we crossed. Arriving in West-Berlin was like arriving at an oasis after being in the desert for a while. I felt exited.

The most impressive thing was the memorial for a few people who tried to escape from East-Berlin but were shot in their attempt (`auf der flug erschossen'). It was situated on the left corner of the Reichtag facing the river Spree. When I was there I saw Vopo's (Volkspolizei) or guards in their watchtower looking over the mined and wired field to the Spree. (in fact it wasn't mined because of the noise it would make. How cynical!) And I looked at the memorial and watched the Vopo's.

Walking along the Spree to the Brandenburger Tor I had a first view of the concrete Berlin Wall. It was on the right corner behind the Reichtag facing the Spree. Some classmates touched the Wall. I didn't, reading the signs. Can you believe it; I stood there face to face with the monster called Berlin Wall and I didn't touch the Wall. I was to impressed and afraid of things what might happen when you wake up the monster. What I felt was the Cold War! But I missed a once in a life time opportunity.

Some days later we went on a trip to East-Berlin. In the Pergamonmuseum a doorman, who was in fact a woman, told that she has never been in the west, but she told that she knew a lot about Holland. When I remember the sadness in her eyes I feel the pain in my heart back in 1983, because she was prisoned in that system without being guilty. Of course they will have laughed. For me it didn't feel good. At the Fernsehturm in East Berlin we stopped also to have a view from the television and radio tower. Walking in the December cold on the Alexanderplatz I stopped to buy a warm sausage. It was so cheap and I felt such a pity for the boy who sold the food that I gave him much more than the actual price.

On our way back to West-Berlin we visited checkpoint Charlie. There I bought a poster of Solidarnosc, the Labour Rights Movement of Lech Walenza in Poland. In fact the fall of the communist dictatorship started with that movement of Lech Walenza and others in the early ninetheen eighties.

In 1992, only 9 years later, I went back to the places I went before. The memorial site for the man and woman `auf der flug erschossen' behind the Reichstag had disappeared but the Watchtower of the Vopo´s was still there. I walked to the other side of the river to the field where the watchtower was and I climbed on it. I had the same view of the Vopo´s in 1983 but I saw a complete different world. The world can really change in nine years.

Now, 20 years and one day have past since the Berlin Wall fell. Step by step this Cold War disappears, but we got to be alert for new wars like these.

The German movie "Das Leben der Anderen" is an example of life in East-Berlin.

The extreme control of the East-Germans is made clear in the plot of Das Leben der Anderen