#flashback89: Memories of the Fall of the Wall – Part II

The memories come from the children and (young) adults of the time. They are told by the staff of the German Digital Library and their families or were sent by email and on social media channels. They are published anonymously.

On the 35th anniversary, we would like to give you the memories to read again and ask you: How do you remember this time? What story would you like to tell?

Click here for Part I and here for the beginning of #rückblende89...
 

Part II: The (young) adults remember

 

No language, a dissolved homeland and freedom with question marks

‘9 November 1989, in the evening. An old flat in a large West German city, an almost empty shared room with a mattress and chair, no table or cupboard. It's dark, I'm listening to the radio and thinking about my friends and family, far away in the East. What are they doing now? Where are they right now? Are they all right? There is no telephone and no language for what is happening. My home is dissolving. Freedom now. Should I be happy? A few days later, a classmate gives me a television. I see people hugging each other and cry with happiness and joy and loneliness.’

Existential worries, welcome money and an unsuspecting man

‘They're all queuing up - but no longer for ‘special food’, which in Dresden also meant ‘yoghurt’, but for a new passport. A requirement for welcome money. I don't have time for that: my daily commute takes me to the premature baby ward in Dresden-Neustadt to get close to my second daughter. The entire hospital only has two midwives left; all the others have offered their services to the ‘West’ in recent years. The care situation is critical. How will it be for my husband, who has hardly any idea of all this: building the natural gas pipelines in the Russian Urals and, after 10 years of waiting, receiving a Trabant, which is now left to rot on the roads in masses?

There's no direction any more, the weekly shop devours a lot more money than usual, will I still be able to fulfil my role as a family mother? I'm just afraid of doing something wrong - I was a single mum of 28 with two daughters and all the errands changed overnight.’

A postal worker, the reconstruction and no answer

‘Uncle Fredi was born and grew up in Berlin-Köpenick. After the war, the whole family moved to Bremen. Uncle Fredi started working for the post office there. And he was a postal worker with all his heart all his life. At the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, however, he was a retired postal worker. His joy on 9 November 1989 was all the greater because he wanted to take part in the ‘reconstruction’. In the reconstruction of the GDR postal service, which he thought had hit rock bottom. Right on time on 10 November, he wrote an application to the Berlin-Köpenick post office with the offer to resume his work as a native of Köpenick and veteran postal worker. To Uncle Fredi's great disappointment, he never received a reply from Berlin.’

Squatting, punk houses and upside-down street signs

‘When I went to Berlin for the first time at the time of reunification, I thought: Great scenery. I was impressed by the atmosphere. So much was broken and people were doing things everywhere. The Schokoladen, the Tacheles - we went over the fence at the back to avoid paying admission and even there was a queue. There was an illegal pub or a party in every building. There was a squat in every street. I wanted to squat houses, not demolish them. When you squat a house, you have to show the neighbours that you're doing something great with it, that you're making it lively. Get them on your side. That didn't usually work. I travelled from city to city, from punk house to punk house and from demo to demo. On Alexanderplatz we demonstrated against reunification and turned over street signs to confuse the police. I was in the anti-nuclear movement. The photos were taken in 1990 in Stendal, where we travelled from Münster to demonstrate against the nuclear power plant. The GDR still existed and we smuggled leaflets across the border.’

Would you like to share a memory of the fall of the Berlin Wall? Write to us at kommunikation [at] deutsche-digitale-bibliothek.de (we are working on a third part...)