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gelbes_gilatierSince this is a very important date in German history, I thought I could use it for another one of my "On... Germans" posts (the other ones were "On elections.", "On heroes." and "On soldiers."). Ironically it's the day of both of one of our darkest and probably the brightest moment in all of German history; the Reichsprogromnacht that marked the beginning of the persecution of the Jews in the Third Reich and the Mauerfall which marked the fall of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Communist block.
Both dates were key dates in shaping the world as it is today. November 9th 1938 was the beginning of a genocide unprecedented in human history and hopefully never to be repeated. It was also the prelude to a war that surpassed everything that has ever happened before. After WWII nothing was ever the same again. November 9th 1989 though was probably our (as a nation, I mean) "Moment In Time" and it also changed the world profoundly. Me sitting here and happily typing away a LiveJournal-posting in English and watching CSI: NY... wouldn't have been possible if the wall hadn't come down 20 years ago (and God, that makes me feel mushy... I actually have tears in my eyes posting this).
I am, as I may have once or twice mentioned, a born Berliner. An East Berliner, to be precise. When I was born in 1982, the wall was still standing tall and no one would ever have thought it would come down. My parents were born in 1950 (my father) and 1957 (my mother) respectively, so they were already born when the wall was built in 1961 but they basically grew up not knowing any other Germany. November 9th 1989 must have changed their world profoundly (moreso since we were living in Berlin, where everything was happening just so close) since everything they ever knew suddenly didn't exist anymore.
Unemployment had been something they only knew from the news of "Westfernsehen" (West German TV) which they watched even though it wasn't allowed (it also wasn't possible in all of East Germany... the area around Dresden used to be called "Das Tal der Ahnungslosen" - "Valley of the Ignorant") and New York a distant place that could have been part of a fairy tale for all they knew. They did travel a lot - I pride myself in having very industrious, curious and active parents who taught us always to look beyond our own noses - to places like Bulgaria, Romania (my dad once was a travel guide for a group of young tourists in Transylvania), Hungary... but sometimes I wonder if their world wouldn't have become too small for them one day if the wall hadn't come down.
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schnelmi would never have been able to pass a year in the US that changed her profoundly or a semester in Italy that was lots of fun for her or a semester in Canada that was crucial for finishing her thesis. She would have never been able to reach her full potential if she wouldn't have been allowed to travel the world as she did and will continue to do so. My sister heitidei also wouldn't have been allowed to pass a year in Spain that was very beneficial to her or study fashion design the way she's doing now. And I wouldn't have been allowed to pass three months in Argentina that helped me improve myself or study English literature or well... write fanfiction and publish it via the Internet.
So yes, the wall coming down brought us (as persons) a world of good... but, and this is in no way meant ungrateful or disrespectful, there are a lot of people - and sometimes us, too - who... feel slighted by history. Or, as my dad likes to say, "What's being able to travel anywhere you want to worth when you don't have the money to pay for it?" What he wants to say with this is that capitalism as it is now shouldn't be history's end. Back in 1989 a lot of people - my parents included - didn't want to simply make the GDR vanish and let West Germany take over everything (which, in the end, was what happened) but a better GDR.
They wanted to change the system they were living in because they did (and still do) believe in socialism; real socialism, that is. A democratic system where the weak don't have to be afraid, where everyone knows of their social responsibility, where everyone has the same chances in their lives. Sounds like today? Think again. They like to tell us that personal misfortune like unemployment, homelessness or even grave illness is exactly that: personal misfortune but in the end... it's so much more than this. It's a combination of a lot of factors and not all of them can be attributed to the lack of personal skills or the unwillingness to work hard. It is society that makes people like that.
I don't know if that can explain why people in East Germany feel cheated by history so I'll try another approach. The GDR regime was a unique regime, very different from the Nazi regime where the evil was apparent in every aspect of it (some of it only after its end but it was). A lot of people in the GDR - like my parents, for example - were hard-working individuals who tried to be good people and make the best of their life, just like in a democratic state. They didn't harm anyone and they went to school, the university, work... just like everyone else as well.
But then came the re-unification and the full extent of the GDR's failings became apparent. And suddenly all these people were told that their lives were worth basically nothing because they had lived under a rule of injustice. Everything they had ever done and never felt to be wrong was judged. My mom, for example, had to cut a lot of red tape to get her university degree recognized to be worthy of a West German university degree, long after she graduated.
Luckily for my parents they never had to endure long periods of unemployment, even after the re-unification. My uncle though... practically from one day to the next he went from recognized chemistry craftsman in a hydrogenation plant to umemployed and basically useless. Everything he had ever achieved went down the drain because the plant where he worked had been declared uneconomical and unnecessary. He never found work again and today he takes care of my grandma.
Just remember, the GDR had endured 40 years, so a lot of people had passed their whole life there until the wall came down. Whole biographies had been declared practically worthless. Still today lots of people in East Germany feel like "second class Germans" - for example, in public service, there are still two pay scales. If you work in East Berlin in public service you automatically get less money than when you work in West Germany in public service (my mom for example... she's a social worker and she makes less money than her co-workers from the western part of the city who do the same work, only in another part of the city). Does it become clearer why the wall in Berlin might have come down but the walls in the heads still endure?
I hope in another 20 years this will have changed profoundly but not if they actually keep treating us East Germans as second-class citizens.
Even though I don't agree with chancelor Merkel's policy I do hope that the fact that she's a woman and from East Germany will make a difference in the future as to how East Germans (and East German women) are seen and treated by West Germans. It would be a shame if generations after my generation - the last ones to consciously remember the wall coming down - there would still be a tear going through Germany, just where the wall used to be.
Meh, and now I'm getting mushy again which is my cue to stop writing for today *sighs I'm just a big softy when it's about world history ;)
Both dates were key dates in shaping the world as it is today. November 9th 1938 was the beginning of a genocide unprecedented in human history and hopefully never to be repeated. It was also the prelude to a war that surpassed everything that has ever happened before. After WWII nothing was ever the same again. November 9th 1989 though was probably our (as a nation, I mean) "Moment In Time" and it also changed the world profoundly. Me sitting here and happily typing away a LiveJournal-posting in English and watching CSI: NY... wouldn't have been possible if the wall hadn't come down 20 years ago (and God, that makes me feel mushy... I actually have tears in my eyes posting this).
I am, as I may have once or twice mentioned, a born Berliner. An East Berliner, to be precise. When I was born in 1982, the wall was still standing tall and no one would ever have thought it would come down. My parents were born in 1950 (my father) and 1957 (my mother) respectively, so they were already born when the wall was built in 1961 but they basically grew up not knowing any other Germany. November 9th 1989 must have changed their world profoundly (moreso since we were living in Berlin, where everything was happening just so close) since everything they ever knew suddenly didn't exist anymore.
Unemployment had been something they only knew from the news of "Westfernsehen" (West German TV) which they watched even though it wasn't allowed (it also wasn't possible in all of East Germany... the area around Dresden used to be called "Das Tal der Ahnungslosen" - "Valley of the Ignorant") and New York a distant place that could have been part of a fairy tale for all they knew. They did travel a lot - I pride myself in having very industrious, curious and active parents who taught us always to look beyond our own noses - to places like Bulgaria, Romania (my dad once was a travel guide for a group of young tourists in Transylvania), Hungary... but sometimes I wonder if their world wouldn't have become too small for them one day if the wall hadn't come down.
My sister
schnelmi would never have been able to pass a year in the US that changed her profoundly or a semester in Italy that was lots of fun for her or a semester in Canada that was crucial for finishing her thesis. She would have never been able to reach her full potential if she wouldn't have been allowed to travel the world as she did and will continue to do so. My sister heitidei also wouldn't have been allowed to pass a year in Spain that was very beneficial to her or study fashion design the way she's doing now. And I wouldn't have been allowed to pass three months in Argentina that helped me improve myself or study English literature or well... write fanfiction and publish it via the Internet. So yes, the wall coming down brought us (as persons) a world of good... but, and this is in no way meant ungrateful or disrespectful, there are a lot of people - and sometimes us, too - who... feel slighted by history. Or, as my dad likes to say, "What's being able to travel anywhere you want to worth when you don't have the money to pay for it?" What he wants to say with this is that capitalism as it is now shouldn't be history's end. Back in 1989 a lot of people - my parents included - didn't want to simply make the GDR vanish and let West Germany take over everything (which, in the end, was what happened) but a better GDR.
They wanted to change the system they were living in because they did (and still do) believe in socialism; real socialism, that is. A democratic system where the weak don't have to be afraid, where everyone knows of their social responsibility, where everyone has the same chances in their lives. Sounds like today? Think again. They like to tell us that personal misfortune like unemployment, homelessness or even grave illness is exactly that: personal misfortune but in the end... it's so much more than this. It's a combination of a lot of factors and not all of them can be attributed to the lack of personal skills or the unwillingness to work hard. It is society that makes people like that.
I don't know if that can explain why people in East Germany feel cheated by history so I'll try another approach. The GDR regime was a unique regime, very different from the Nazi regime where the evil was apparent in every aspect of it (some of it only after its end but it was). A lot of people in the GDR - like my parents, for example - were hard-working individuals who tried to be good people and make the best of their life, just like in a democratic state. They didn't harm anyone and they went to school, the university, work... just like everyone else as well.
But then came the re-unification and the full extent of the GDR's failings became apparent. And suddenly all these people were told that their lives were worth basically nothing because they had lived under a rule of injustice. Everything they had ever done and never felt to be wrong was judged. My mom, for example, had to cut a lot of red tape to get her university degree recognized to be worthy of a West German university degree, long after she graduated.
Luckily for my parents they never had to endure long periods of unemployment, even after the re-unification. My uncle though... practically from one day to the next he went from recognized chemistry craftsman in a hydrogenation plant to umemployed and basically useless. Everything he had ever achieved went down the drain because the plant where he worked had been declared uneconomical and unnecessary. He never found work again and today he takes care of my grandma.
Just remember, the GDR had endured 40 years, so a lot of people had passed their whole life there until the wall came down. Whole biographies had been declared practically worthless. Still today lots of people in East Germany feel like "second class Germans" - for example, in public service, there are still two pay scales. If you work in East Berlin in public service you automatically get less money than when you work in West Germany in public service (my mom for example... she's a social worker and she makes less money than her co-workers from the western part of the city who do the same work, only in another part of the city). Does it become clearer why the wall in Berlin might have come down but the walls in the heads still endure?
I hope in another 20 years this will have changed profoundly but not if they actually keep treating us East Germans as second-class citizens.
Even though I don't agree with chancelor Merkel's policy I do hope that the fact that she's a woman and from East Germany will make a difference in the future as to how East Germans (and East German women) are seen and treated by West Germans. It would be a shame if generations after my generation - the last ones to consciously remember the wall coming down - there would still be a tear going through Germany, just where the wall used to be.
Meh, and now I'm getting mushy again which is my cue to stop writing for today *sighs I'm just a big softy when it's about world history ;)
