A dreary, concrete wall covered in graffiti, 12 feet high and 96 miles long, separated East and West Berlin for 28 years. It symbolized the Cold War and communism, reminding East German citizens that freedom was beyond their reach, although many residents attempted fleeing the country--some successful and some shot down. That all changed on Nov. 9, 1989.
I lived about a half-mile from the border to Potsdam. My neighbor, JoAnn Gaffron-Hargrove, and I explored the area; it looked like World War II had just ended--the condition of the buildings, the bridges, the way people dressed, everything. They were 40 years behind times.
Less than a year later, the two Germanys reunited.
While freedom and reuniting families was a jubilant affair, reunification happened quickly; some feel too quickly, not giving the Easterners time to adapt and learn new skills.
The East Germans were never asked how they'd like reunification to work. They never had a voice in it: the parliament, the laws, the police force; how they'd like things played out regarding rules, regulations, and laws. It was just taken over from the West. One of the few features from the East that remained intact, surviving the end of Communism, was the green and the red Ampelmann--traffic light man--the symbol shown on crosswalks to let pedestrians know when it's safe to cross the street.
JoAnn mentioned how overwhelming that must've been for the East Germans. Their political system, their identity, and everything they related to were gone. "They were expected to adopt the West German ways, values, government, flag, etc. While West Germany may have felt the need to fix things in the East, was there any thought given to the way East Germans felt?"
Food was different, too. Fruit wasn't as common, especially bananas. The Westerners started calling the Easterners bananenfressers, banana eaters, although fresser is somewhat similar to our term "pigging out."
Now, 30 years later, the wall's been down longer than it was up. There's still inequality when it comes to salaries. Those in the West earn more than those in the East doing the same job. Opportunities for careers are better in the West. Oftentimes, people just move to the West, but they need to be re-educated and retrained. Some say it's going to take another couple of generations for East and West to be unified as far as salaries go.
Following the collapse of the wall, there was violence toward foreigners, an attitude that continues today with mistrust toward immigrants. "In the East all those years, they didn't have a lot of foreigners," JoAnn pointed out. "Black people from Africa, somebody from India--that wasn't so common. The younger people, there's more hope there."
Despite the struggles to reunite, there's been a lot of good, especially seeing families reunited. Although that wasn't always the priority for everyone.
My friend was at the Glienicke Bruecke, or "Bridge of Spies," when it first opened, the bridge where prisoner exchanges were made between the Soviets and the West during the Cold War. Many of the East Germans, as soon as they crossed the border, wanted to know: "Where do we go to get the money?" East Germans received money upon crossing into the West for the first time.
She felt a little let down, feeling freedom and family would be priorities, although understanding the drive for material things, since they didn't have access to a lot of things for all those years.
"That was the crux of the whole problem--in a nutshell. They were very excited about coming to the West. They thought this was it--the land of milk and honey--but then they found out it wasn't that easy. There are some problems, too. Life isn't all that simple and it's not all about having stuff."
For Joern, who I met during his first trip to West Berlin, it was about freedom. How did he feel that day? "There are no words for this. I've been asked a few times to express my feelings at that moment. It's not possible. It was a dream coming true."
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Jo Eager is a journalist in San Diego who lived in Berlin during the 1980s and Little Rock during the '70s.
Editorial on 10/31/2019