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Bettina recalls fall of Berlin
Wall
11.11.09
by
Simon McGeady, Inishowen Independent
WORLD leaders gathered in Germany on Monday to
celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the
Berlin wall, which brought about the re-unification
of Germany and an end of the Cold War.
For Inishowen’s small group of East German
residents, the media focus brought memories flooding
back, not all of them pleasant.
Bettina Linke lives in Buncrana today, but back in
the autumn of ’89 she was a 25 year old pedicurist
working a couple of streets away from Checkpoint
Charlie. Born in Leipzig, Bettina moved to East
Berlin when she was 18. For some, the wall coming
down was a great relief, but for Bettina, it was a
mixed blessing at best.
“I have seen some of the stuff on TV this week but
it didn’t really move me. I was never ashamed to be
a citizen of the German Democratic Republic. It was
my home, it was what I knew and I never felt that I
wasn’t free. |
“We had much more
restrictions on how you could express yourself than
they had in the West, but there were ways around
that. The East German system was a good system,
everyone was looked after. There were far less rich
people in the East, but everyone had work and a
house to live in.”
The 45 year old was laid up with the flu when the
border with the West opened up.
“I heard about it on the TV news the following
morning. A couple of days later I went over to the
West, but it wasn’t the first time for me.”
The sudden collapse of the communist system in
Germany had a serious impact on the East German
population, according to Bettina.
“People in East Berlin stopped going to work, there
were soldiers behind the counter in the banks. |
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Before the wall came
down we didn’t have many things, like exotic fruit.
People went crazy after reunification. In a
supermarket East Berliners would rip food out of
West Berliners hands and say ‘I deserve to have
this.’ These were not the same people who protested
against the authorities in the spring and summer.”
From talking to friends in Berlin, Bettina learnt
there had been a lot of nostalgia about the days
when the city was divided. Communist East German era
items such as clothing, coffee machines and alarm
clocks are selling well. Bettina moved to Ireland in
1995, eventually settling in Inishowen.
“I didn’t like the United German Fatherland. It was
something that had to happen, but if it had happened
with less speed, it would have given people on both
sides of the border time to adjust. They were two
completely different political systems and people
were used to different ways of life. Twenty years on
the people of Germany are still divided.”
However, for another East German relocated to
Inishowen, reunification meant a world free from the
oppressive fear and paranoia of the Stasi, the East
German secret police.
“I was shocked and happy to hear the wall came down.
There was a big queue at the embassy to get our
papers stamped. At the wall soldiers were standing
with their guns but they weren’t stopping us. People
from the other side welcomed us and had a big party.
Now you were free to go wherever you wanted without
being stopped and questioned.” |
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