Berlin Wall
Monday, 9 November 2009
By early 1961, as many as 1,000 people a day flee East German communism for a better life in the capitalist west. Western media report the exodus. Eastern state-controlled media ignore it. Still, East Berliners can see their neighbors leaving. The migration continues. On Aug. 13, 1961, the East German government throws up a 27-mile-long wall of barbed wire across the city, splitting East from West Berlin to “protect citizens from capitalism”. Telephone lines and mail service between East and West Germany are cut. East Berliners can’t even visit family members in the West. The razor-sharp wire is replaced with tons of stone, steel and deadly force.
The Berlin Wall is born.
…It’s a very hard life, but I think the energy to do this is the result about the knowledge of freedom and unfreedom. I know freedom disappeared. The most in the west aren’t able to understand this. For them it’s freedom, like it is normal. I love this. But if you never even think about unfreedom and lost of freedom, you will never get a taste, the wonderful taste of freedom.
George Gafron
Former RIAS Berlin employee
