The Berlin Wall: 20 Years Later

[JeanneDarc]

A show was broadcasted here last weekend about the Stasi and how they affected the DDR. Up to a point 1 in 50 people in the DDR were directly linked with the Stasi. Either working for them, or as moles.

In the documentary they talked to former spy's, and people involved. The most haunting story was that of a women who lived a mile from the wall. She heard the gunshots and when that happened she knew they shot people down who tried to escape. She said "It was one of those days I heard gunshots again, it always went through my body like cold ice, but this time. I didn't know it was my son"...

It gave me goosebumps. This boy was the last person who got shot before the wall broke. There was a man who had been taken to prison by the Stasi. He was betrayed by his own brother. The accusations were false.

I asked myself. How do you participate in a society were you can't trust anybody? How do you live? In fear?

Such a fascinating thing, and yet not long ago.

 

[mattisek]

Well said Mattisek!

These experiences are things that are very poignant for me. I have my pieces of the wall that I chiseled out myself and kept to give to my son. I want him to know the story and understand the significance.

Glad to know there is another Berliner in the forum!!

Prosit!!

Prost

 

[Je Suis Julie]

Great thread!

I caught the tail end of a documentary on the History Channel this morning. One brother swam his way out. Later, another brother used a bow and arrow to shoot cable from one high roof to another and basically zip-lined his way out. Finally, those two brothers taught themselves how to build and fly light planes. They flew back over the wall to pick up a third brother. Amazing!

All the footage of everyone streaming through the opened gates was great to see again.

 

[therightone]

Great thread!

I caught the tail end of a documentary on the History Channel this morning. One brother swam his way out. Later, another brother used a bow and arrow to shoot cable from one high roof to another and basically zip-lined his way out. Finally, those two brothers taught themselves how to build and fly light planes. They flew back over the wall to pick up a third brother. Amazing!

All the footage of everyone streaming through the opened gates was great to see again.

So many amazing stories from this tortured city and the triumph of the human will. The courage to dream under such oppressive circumstances. Truly inspiring!

 

[therightone]

Five Scenes, One Theme: A True if Unlikely Story

EXT. BRANDENBURG GATE

BERLIN, NOVEMBER 2009 — NIGHT

The camera cranes over a crowd of thousands gathered in Pariser Platz.

An Irish band plays its song “One” in the city where it was written nearly 20 years earlier. The band is here for an MTV broadcast celebrating the anniversary of the wall’s falling. A helicopter shot glides like a ghost through the architecture of this most modern of cities: the avant-garde Chancellery, the glass dome at the top of the Reichstag, the refurbished Brandenburg Gate. Images of East and West Berlin dancing to the music are projected on the gate, turning this monument to peace into a graffiti wall of the same....

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/opinion/15bono.html?_r=1&ref=global-home