More than a quarter of a century has passed since I joined street celebrations in Germany on the night that the Berlin Wall crumbled. Now one can stand at the infamous Checkpoint Charlie and be disoriented by the fact that you can just walk back and forth across a road where the only block is a predictably switching traffic light. I felt like a bridge over time in this completely ordinary world. A blank firewall at this place seemed like the only memory of a distant nightmare.
At night we had dinner with a friend who told us of a terrible experience at the checkpoint. She had gone for a conference and a concert in what was then East Berlin. On the way back she was asked for her passport. When she showed it, she was escorted off the bus and taken into an underground room. There was one more woman there and she was crying endlessly. After a while a door opened and an uniformed man came in with a pill, which the crying woman swallowed. Our friend said “I was scared of the tablet. I decided that no matter what happened I would not cry.” All of us at the dinner table laughed at that absurd memory of the past. She said that nothing happened after this. The two women just sat there. Some time later someone from the Swedish consulate came to take our friend home. We stopped laughing when the story ended. Somehow the ending carried a sense of the emptiness and lack of hope on the other side of the border.
This photo is an experiment in trying to recall a brutal past while standing in the bright and pleasant sunlight of today.
Great post! I have been there in the past as well, and one can feel the weight of what that place meant for so many people.
Frank
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Thank you. Not just the weight of the past, but the light and airiness of the present.
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Very true!
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I like the shadow of the past and the promise of the bright blue sky. Abstract image and great interpretation.
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Thank you
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I lived in West Berlin for about 8 months in 1983. I was living with my family, and my father was working there at the Freie Universitaet. We took a tour of Checkpoint Charlie at the time, and also a bus tour of East Berlin. Of course they showed us all the best parts of the city because we were foreign tourists. I am very curious about what the city looks like today, but haven’t been back in a long time. Thanks for sharing!
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Thanks for the comment.
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I love this image, it reflects the story and history. The blue sky symbolizes the brightness, an inspiring photo! Thank you so much!
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Welcome. I’m glad you like it.
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Great entry for the challenge – its history too.
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Thanks. Yes, such a history!
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