TWBN#4: The Berlin Wall and Other East European Monsters

I was lucky enough to visit Berlin before the Wall came down, so I got to see how strange it was to have that city (West Berlin) in the middle of East Germany, surrounded by a huge wall. Apparently the East German Government explained when they erected it that they had to protect East Berlin against the massive influx of West Germans that would happen when the wessies saw how well their neighbours were getting on. Nonetheless plenty of people tried to escape the other way (with often fatal consequences). There's a well-written book by an Australian woman about living in the East and some that tried to escape, called "Stasiland". Here's a link to an extract on the Guardian website. My partner lived in West Berlin for some time as an au pair when she was a teenager. When I first went there with her in 1987 (I think) to visit the family she had stayed with I thought it was fascinating, but now I think The Wall was desperate and quite ridiculous. The Wall allowed the close juxtaposition of these two opposed cultures and exacerbated their differences, which made for a great tourist attraction. I was struck by the playful response to it by people on the Western side See this site by Chris DeWitt for lots of pictures of the Wall and another for some more. A lot of it looks brutal and quite shocking. So a spectacle worth seeing, but a repressive experience for people in the East, I think, so I was very glad to see it come down; that was amazing to watch (that link goes to a story on the BBC site with testimonies from eye-witnesses).

The Fall of the Berlin Wall was part of a wider, very exciting breakdown of Soviet control over other Eastern European countries, starting in early 1989 with Poland, where the massive "Solidarnosc" (Solidarity) trade union, led by Lech Walesa, was able to defy General Jaruzelski and force free elections. That was a stunning victory and seemed to inspire people in other countries in the region to stand up to their governments. Previous protests had been crushed, but now somehow people seemed more powerful than the armies. The most memorable of that year were the Czech "Velvet Revolution", remarkable for the election of a Frank Zappa - loving playwright as president and the Romanian more violent one.

Brief Introduction to the Berlin Wall in English and German

My First Visit to New York

The first time I went to New York, in 1985, I had to get a visa from the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square in London. I turned up in Manhattan without anywhere to stay and walked around a bit and found a little place that rented rooms in Chelsea (that's around where the Empire State Building and the Chelsea Hotel are). The owner was a middle-aged guy called Art who was a bit eccentric (sorry Art). He was involved in a local cable television channel, and I did see a bit of one programme that was a discussion, but I don't remember what it was about, and I don't remember watching anything else. He had a set-top decoder that allowed him to receive loads of channels, but when I tried to look at some of the programmes he got mad because I left it set wrong. Art let me do a couple of odd jobs in return for free rent. I painted his shopfront and rearranged a big load of books for him, but I'm sure I didn't do a very good job. Art had a good heart, but he was a little paranoid - he thought people in a garage next door were trying to get rid of him in order to expand their property; he said he's found a gas cannister on his roof and he took this as a threat or a sign that they could blow him up. They had offered him money for his house at some point but he'd refused and now he thought they wanted to get rid of him by other means. He put a sign up in his window with some kind of demand or accusation that I'm sure no one would understand (probably not even the people in the garage). His place was decrepit and the rooms were tiny, but I stayed there for several weeks and walked around Manhattan (my idea of New York was Manhattan). I walked south to the World Trade Centre and Battery Park and Fort Tryon Park in the north. I saw free dance at the Lincoln Centre and I walked around the Metropolitan Museum several times, not forgetting the Museum of Modern Art, the Frick Collection and the Guggenheim Museum. At the Met I thought the Persian miniatures were lovely and I was blown away by the tribal carvings of the pre-Columbian section, particularly the fertility totems and canoes with wonderful carvings on the prows. I don't remember what I saw at the Guggenheim, the building itself is what makes the impression. The Frick Collection is a smaller gallery based on a private collection of old masters. It had some masterpieces that floored me.