My own galaxy far, far away... (Berlin reminiscences)
Twenty-five years ago, the Berlin Wall came down. Less than ten years later, I made a remark about not having been back to Berlin since the wall came down and sunspiral's and roozle's eldest son, who was 11-ish, asked if the wall were medieval.
I remember both my first and my last times in Berlin (which sounds far more like the beginnigs of a novel than a personal story). The first time was 1985. My father headed a program for Boston University and the professors moved every four months so that they could make certain that the students got all the credits they needed toward their Master's in International Relations. Because the previous head had let things get muddled, we'd spent the previous year in the Brussels apartment for Christmas.
Berlin was cold. I remember learning about "the great grassy plain" and how it shaped Europe. What no one ever mentions is that the wind starts on the Russian steppes and just keeps going until it hits the North Sea or the Alps. Vienna is on the alpine path, and Berlin is on the North Sea path. Halley's comet was due and my Christmas present was a pair of Zeiss binoculars so that I could try to see it.
We went to East Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie on a tour. The guides on that tour were more concerned about anti-Communist propaganda than history. I vaguely remember that one of the primary reasons for us to take the tour was so that I could see the Ishtar Gate at the Pergamon Museum, but I can't be 100% sure that it was on the Eastern side of the wall.
I do remember getting to see the Ishtar Gate and the Nefertiti bust -- which I think was in a different museum on the Western side. On the Eastern side, where the old Reichstag was, no one had repaired the bullet holes in the outer walls.
The mass graves for the Russian soldiers with their weeping birch trees were very moving. But the thing that most struck me was the housing. The style was known as Moscow gingerbread, and it went up very quickly after World War II. The Americans were so proud of rebuilding the concert hall, and it was an important cultural touchstone, but when the wall went up, most of the people were on the other side because the Russians provided shelter.
We saw The Nutcracker in West Berlin, and Madama Butterfly in East Berlin, in one of the most inventive productions I've ever seen. Everything on the East side of the wall seemed desaturated of color. I genuinely can't explain it, but even the bricks seemed less vibrant on that side of the wall.
The city had four sets of laws. You could get different penalties for speeding depending on whether you were in the British, French, or American sectors, for instance. Berlin was an occupied city with all of the weirdness that brings. My first day there we went to the Kufurstendam by U-bahn. On the way up, I saw a placard with the name "Theriesenstadt." Other names appeared as the escalator climbed and when I saw "Dachau" I realized it was a list of all the concentration or death camps. Berlin, a city that hadn't supported Hitler in the election, had in its most popular metro stop a constant reminder of what he had led the German people into.
Everyone thinks of West Berlin as being the free side, and it was in that it wasn't under the Communists. What isn't remembered is that the western side was smaller and completely surrounded by East Germany -- a small island, occupied, at least nominally, by three armies.
I spent another Christmas there, too.
In early 1987, my father moved to the Berlin apartment. He knew he was going to be working in Boston by the end of June, and Mom went to the US to stay with my sister for a month or two before going up to Boston and finding and furnishing an apartment for her and Dad.
I asked Dad if I could visit him for my 26th birthday. Modern Jazz Quartet, whom he'd first seen in Germany in 1956, had recently gotten back together and were going to be playing in Berlin on my birthday.
Dad had always played a lot of jazz, but MJQ was the group that really got me into jazz for myself. I knew all of their names, that John Lewis taught at Julliard, that Milt Jackson's vibes sounded different from anyone else's because they were tuned to the frequency of the human voice, that Percy Heath was considered one of the great sidemen, and that Connie Kay was a percussionist, not a drummer. My first boyfriend and I had bonded over their music, too, and I wanted a chance to see them live.
It was my only time entering the city by train. An East German flashlight was shone in my face around 4:30 in the morning by a security officer matching my face to my passport photo. Dad met me at the Bahnhof, and we stopped for fruhstuck at the cafe near the apartment.
Dinner was great. Dad and I had a very good few days talking about life -- and it strikes me hard to realize that he was only about 18 months older than I am now.
The concert was out of this world with one disappointment: they didn't play my favorite song. The first encore was Bags' Groove. They were called back for a second encore, and my birthday was perfect. They played The Martyr, my favorite.
Dad left Europe not long after that. One of his students brought back a chunk of the wall for him after he vacationed in the newly reunited city.
I went through a great deal before coming back to the US in March of 1987. I've never seen the Brandenburg Gate open. I want to.
I remember both my first and my last times in Berlin (which sounds far more like the beginnigs of a novel than a personal story). The first time was 1985. My father headed a program for Boston University and the professors moved every four months so that they could make certain that the students got all the credits they needed toward their Master's in International Relations. Because the previous head had let things get muddled, we'd spent the previous year in the Brussels apartment for Christmas.
Berlin was cold. I remember learning about "the great grassy plain" and how it shaped Europe. What no one ever mentions is that the wind starts on the Russian steppes and just keeps going until it hits the North Sea or the Alps. Vienna is on the alpine path, and Berlin is on the North Sea path. Halley's comet was due and my Christmas present was a pair of Zeiss binoculars so that I could try to see it.
We went to East Berlin through Checkpoint Charlie on a tour. The guides on that tour were more concerned about anti-Communist propaganda than history. I vaguely remember that one of the primary reasons for us to take the tour was so that I could see the Ishtar Gate at the Pergamon Museum, but I can't be 100% sure that it was on the Eastern side of the wall.
I do remember getting to see the Ishtar Gate and the Nefertiti bust -- which I think was in a different museum on the Western side. On the Eastern side, where the old Reichstag was, no one had repaired the bullet holes in the outer walls.
The mass graves for the Russian soldiers with their weeping birch trees were very moving. But the thing that most struck me was the housing. The style was known as Moscow gingerbread, and it went up very quickly after World War II. The Americans were so proud of rebuilding the concert hall, and it was an important cultural touchstone, but when the wall went up, most of the people were on the other side because the Russians provided shelter.
We saw The Nutcracker in West Berlin, and Madama Butterfly in East Berlin, in one of the most inventive productions I've ever seen. Everything on the East side of the wall seemed desaturated of color. I genuinely can't explain it, but even the bricks seemed less vibrant on that side of the wall.
The city had four sets of laws. You could get different penalties for speeding depending on whether you were in the British, French, or American sectors, for instance. Berlin was an occupied city with all of the weirdness that brings. My first day there we went to the Kufurstendam by U-bahn. On the way up, I saw a placard with the name "Theriesenstadt." Other names appeared as the escalator climbed and when I saw "Dachau" I realized it was a list of all the concentration or death camps. Berlin, a city that hadn't supported Hitler in the election, had in its most popular metro stop a constant reminder of what he had led the German people into.
Everyone thinks of West Berlin as being the free side, and it was in that it wasn't under the Communists. What isn't remembered is that the western side was smaller and completely surrounded by East Germany -- a small island, occupied, at least nominally, by three armies.
I spent another Christmas there, too.
In early 1987, my father moved to the Berlin apartment. He knew he was going to be working in Boston by the end of June, and Mom went to the US to stay with my sister for a month or two before going up to Boston and finding and furnishing an apartment for her and Dad.
I asked Dad if I could visit him for my 26th birthday. Modern Jazz Quartet, whom he'd first seen in Germany in 1956, had recently gotten back together and were going to be playing in Berlin on my birthday.
Dad had always played a lot of jazz, but MJQ was the group that really got me into jazz for myself. I knew all of their names, that John Lewis taught at Julliard, that Milt Jackson's vibes sounded different from anyone else's because they were tuned to the frequency of the human voice, that Percy Heath was considered one of the great sidemen, and that Connie Kay was a percussionist, not a drummer. My first boyfriend and I had bonded over their music, too, and I wanted a chance to see them live.
It was my only time entering the city by train. An East German flashlight was shone in my face around 4:30 in the morning by a security officer matching my face to my passport photo. Dad met me at the Bahnhof, and we stopped for fruhstuck at the cafe near the apartment.
Dinner was great. Dad and I had a very good few days talking about life -- and it strikes me hard to realize that he was only about 18 months older than I am now.
The concert was out of this world with one disappointment: they didn't play my favorite song. The first encore was Bags' Groove. They were called back for a second encore, and my birthday was perfect. They played The Martyr, my favorite.
Dad left Europe not long after that. One of his students brought back a chunk of the wall for him after he vacationed in the newly reunited city.
I went through a great deal before coming back to the US in March of 1987. I've never seen the Brandenburg Gate open. I want to.
