Twenty years after the fall of the Wall
Enlightened Europeans gather, celebrate, commemorate, debate, update….fair enough, it would be wrong not to do so. Yesterday: Rememberance Sunday – saw state-of-the-art BBC documentaries on bravery, patriotism and supreme sacrifice. Today: Twenty years since the fall of the Wall in Berlin. Gorbatchev is older, Lech Walensa is older, Voityla is gone and it is politically correct to say no to meat…. A few more weeks to go till we ponder on the events in Romania, December 1989.
Yesterday, my very private session with the past comprised Everything is Illumminated, the film. The past, not only mine, but also the one of the last three generations on my family tree, reached out and grasped me by the throat. My next session with the past will be sitting down and watch Das Leben der Anderen - again. One could add 4 Month, 3 Weeks, 2 Days; Sunshine; Katyn; The Reader and so many more.
The older I get, the better I know: I need to remember, I refuse to forget…..The Wall in our heads is more of an issue than anything else that hits the news nowadays.
November 10th, 2009 at 4:09 am
The wall in your head is made of nothing that it concrete. It is made of nothing that cannot be knocked down. It is made of nothing that has to stay forever. They knocked down the Berlin Wall, now it is up to you to knock down the Eva Wall. Though it seems solid and inpenetrable, you can see through it, you can climb over it, you can tunnel beneath it or you can just get a sledgehammer and break through. You only need a tiny window in order to go through to the other side. Be brave. Courage! Vas-y.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
We watched Das Leben der Anderen on Friday. That movie hurts, every minute. I can watch it once every couple years.
When I had no idea how significant it was (I was 15, in German I, first year of high school) I went to an American Association of Teachers of German award banquet. The Goethe Institut was a sponsor and sent us home with free posters of a photo of people around the Mauer on November 9, 1989.
Now that I´ve lived there it´s framed and hanging in my office. My mom pulled it out of the closet for me on one of my visits home and said, “This is really special. You need to take care of it.”