A little over 25 years ago the Berlin wall opened to free
travel. My father spent his childhood and youth in Berlin, though he left long
before the wall went up. Anyway, I felt more than slightly interested in this
event, and the spring after the opening of the borders, my son, my parents and
I spent some time in Berlin. There were portions of the wall still standing,
though people were chipping away at it.
When my father lived there, Berlin was the capital of
Germany. and the country and the city were still whole. At the end of World War
II (1945), Germany and Berlin were divided, originally into 4 occupation zones
(the United States, Great Britain, France, and the Soviet Union). Eventually these were amalgamated into East
and West Germany and East and West Berlin. It should be noted that Berlin was
located in East Germany. The Soviet Union opposed the other allies’ plans to
create a West German republic so on the 26 of June, 1948, they blockaded all
ground travel into Berlin. This began the Berlin Air Lift, which brought needed
supplies (food, coal, etc.) to West Berlin. My father's mother was living in East Berlin at the time. We were living in West Germany and I'd been born earlier that year. My grandmother had wanted my father to move the family to Berlin; instead, he and my mother started talking about emigrating to Canada. The airlift lasted until May 11, 1949 when
the Soviet Union again allowed ground traffic.
The wall wasn’t built until 1961, overnight with no warning.
It was a response by the Soviet Union to massive numbers of East Germans
fleeing to the west, though they called it protection against western fascists.
Walls can keep people out or in. They are necessary to build
houses that protect and shelter us from weather. Walls may enclose gardens or
fields. They can be beautiful or ugly. People may build psychological or other
walls to protect themselves or to keep out others.
The Berlin wall became a symbol of a divided people, of
oppression, of the Cold War. For many Berliners it was a constant stark
reminder of tyranny. I heard of a writer in West Germany who deliberately chose
an apartment where he saw the wall every day from his windows. We've all heard
the stories of those who died trying and those who succeeded in crossing the
wall and the “death strip.”
There are many different kinds of walls – walls of prejudice
and hate, “glass ceilings” preventing promotions, walls of poverty, lack of
education, walls of ignorance and a refusal to see the issues before us.
It’s early to be making new year’s wishes, but it seems
appropriate: I wish we’d all spend as much time and money tearing down walls as
we spend on armament and war.
