Summary: Conspicuous Westerner receives, eventually returns, long stares

The difference between studying in West Germany and East Germany was like night and day. The colors were muted and drab in the DDR. Goods available for purchase were limited in variety and often of mediocre quality.

And there were very, very few foreigners. What really stood out about studying in the DDR was, well, how much I stood out.

In Tübingen there were well over a hundred students from the US and the UK. They’d gather to drink, smoke, play cards, and speak English. I generally avoided those groups.

I have always hated smoking, and I wanted to continue to improve my language skills and interact with Germans. Why come to Germany only to hang out with English speakers?

When I walked down the street or through the center of Tübingen, no one would give me a second glance. In Rostock, the absolute opposite happened.

There were only about ten students from the West in Rostock, and we stood out like flashing neon lights wherever we went. If I boarded a streetcar, everyone on board would turn to look at me … and continue staring for an uncomfortably long time.

Normally, when you walk down the street or sit in a park, if your eyes happen to meet those of a stranger, you immediately look away. You might smile or nod in silent greeting, but that moment rarely lasts more than a fraction of a second.

Imagine sitting in a bus or a streetcar, and when you meet someone’s gaze, the connection locks and you find yourself eyeing each other for 5 to 10 seconds. That feels like an eternity. And if you look away to someone else, you find that she, too, is looking at you!

There was never a smile or a nod. It wasn’t a blank stare or a nosey, inquiring look. It wasn’t quite a glare or scowl of judgment. Just a neutral, unsmiling gaze, like the vacant black-and-white countenance in many a foreigner’s passport photo.

I found this very unsettling. The voice in your mind asks whether something is wrong with you: a stain on your shirt, your hair mussed, food hanging from your cheek. You try to remain calm, but inside you are going through an inventory of all the things that might elicit such discomfiting stares.

Often, I’d feel their eyes directed at my clothes, whatever I might be carrying, etc. I was told that even if I wore East German clothes, my shoes would give me away, since the variety of footwear available to purchase in the DDR was scanty.

Finally, I realized, “Hey, if they can look at me, I can look back at them!” So I’d stare back. Unsmiling, neither inviting nor defensive, I’d take my time to study their faces, hair, clothes, avoiding any hint of judgment, attraction, or fear.

As Americans, we are socialized to smile. It took some practice to break that habit. Thinking back on it now, I’m reminded of many moments in the Sherlock Holmes adventures, when the famed detective would study and scrutinize a client silently, then come up with a miraculous narrative about that person’s recent and distant past, education, employment, and so on.

My deductive skills were nowhere near the realm of even a mediocre investigator, but being able to allow myself to gaze back at strangers was an unusual and surprisingly fascinating experience, one I have never seen or experienced since.

Summary: Spending a semester in either half of the formerly divided Germany gave me an opportunity to compare the attitudes of each about the other.

It was my impression that the West Germans generally held attitudes of pity and superiority over their Eastern peers. Those who had traveled to the East came back with strengthened feelings of their transcendence, having witnessed the scarcity of goods, inferior and air-fouling automobiles, and countless drab colored buildings frozen in states of disrepair, like faded, living 3-D photographs from WWII.

They scoffed at the tiny East German currency, including the lightweight pfennigs pressed out of aluminum. They bemoaned the oppression, the informants (real and imagined), and the lack of freedom their Eastern peers labored under: prevented by walls, barbed wire, and armed soldiers from leaving to visit friends and relatives, or to purchase Western goods.

Even in Hungary, where the Iron Curtain opened to travel and trade with Austria just months earlier, I heard dire stories about how “they have nothing” in the DDR. I spent a month during Christmas break in Hungary after completing my semester in West Germany, just before I started my semester in Rostock, DDR.

On the East Germany side, despite a healthy and constant stream of anti-west propaganda, I heard few denigrating comments about the West. As one might hear in most countries in the world, any differences they felt for other countries was mostly directed at the government and foreign policies, not individual citizens.

On the 1st of May, people dutifully carried banners decrying the fascism and imperialism of the West and parroting the slogans of the Socialist Revolution. But I never perceived the fervor — the emotion behind the words — and never encountered anyone who sought to convince me either of the advantages of socialism or the evils of capitalism.

Did they want to leave the DDR? Yes, but mostly just to visit friends and relatives, purchase Western goods, and just generally check things out. Although they might grumble about conditions, corruption, oppression, etc., none of those complaints convinced me that the Berlin Wall would fall anytime soon.

The Museum at Checkpoint Charlie was a popular tourist site, but I never went. I knew people had tried to escape and had been killed for it, and I knew I would be upset by those stories. I further expected predictable self-congratulation bordering on nationalism to color the narrative and photos on display. The visit of one of my classmates confirmed my suspicions.

Louise visited West Berlin and Checkpoint Charlie well into our semester of study in Rostock. There she overheard a docent — a U.S. military person, I believe —regale some visitors with tales of how terrible life was in the DDR: little to eat, no freedom, crushing oppression, etc.

She stepped up and interjected that although things might be a bit poorer, people actually lived comfortably, though maybe not extravagantly in the DDR. The docent retorted in a strong American accent, “well, yerrrr an Amerrrican. Yerrrr freeee. You can go in, check it out, and leave when you wanna.”

I remember conversations with a Rostock student, Volker, who had spent a semester or year studying at my alma mater, Brown University. What struck him about the West were the homeless people he saw. In the DDR, people may not have been rich, and some were poor.

But you never saw homeless people, people starving, or people begging on the streets. That stark contrast really hit me when I left the DDR, and again later when I traveled in Japan.

When German reunification (Wiedervereinigung) occurred, I got the sense that the West Germans were eager to free their Eastern brethren and sistren from the oppression of socialism and share with them the fruits of capitalism and associated freedom. That enthusiasm waned, and in some cases turned to anger as the rising costs of rebuilding the former DDR put a great strain on the great former West German economy.

Meanwhile, former DDR citizens, used to a stable albeit modest existence, were now faced with the sometimes rapacious excesses of western capitalism. I can only imagine the giving and receiving of “Vitamin B” significantly decreasing.

Today, we see groups of people in Russia long for the security and stability of former U.S.S.R., including its concomitant oppression. I can only wonder how many people remember and long for the life in the former DDR.

As wealth inequality increases in the U.S. and other western countries, one hears more and more calls for more regulation and Scandinavian-style socialism. A label that would have spelled political death just a few years ago is now embraced and proudly promoted by candidates that are winning numbers well beyond the fringes of decades past.

I think it is clear that people recognize more and more that it is not simply an either-or choice between capitalism and socialism. There are lessons to be learned from the two Germanys that became one.

Summary: Babies in baby carriages were left safely and undisturbed outside stores and classrooms in the DDR.

When I walked the streets of Rostock back in 1989, it was not uncommon to see baby carriages parked outside stores, unattended and safe while mothers inside shopped, or more frequently, waited in line.

Outside university classrooms and lecture halls, one would often see a collection of strollers. Infants lay peacefully and completely safe from mistreatment, abduction, or neglect. These images remain sharp in my mind’s eye, and I kick myself, again, for failing to take photographs of them.
Update: Happily, my friend, Louise sent me a picture of bunch of strollers parked outside a shoe store:

The DDR encouraged and supported pregnancy and birth, and provided mothers a lot of assistance. There was an extensive network of day care centers. Mothers received a year of paid maternity leave.

East German women had more babies than their Western counterparts, had them earlier, and were still able and encouraged to study or work (though I don’t recall there was an expectation or pressure, economic or otherwise, to do so).

I sensed a distinct absence of shame or judgement imposed on unmarried women who gave birth or raised children alone. At the same time, gender stereotypes in the DDR working world were dwarfed by those in West Germany and other western countries.

Women could be crane operators, scientists, and academics without condescension. Not that there was no sexism, but it certainly seemed closer to an equality I’ve never seen at a societal level in the U.S.

Today, thirty years later back home, many women still have to juggle career or child care, weighing the economic burden of raising children and the likely negative impact on their professional careers.

Today, the U.S. is still the only developed nation that does not mandate paid maternity (or paternity) leave. Certain companies may offer some form of maternity/paternity leave, but only four U.S. states offer publicly funded leave. Most European countries provide between 26 and 58 weeks, although Hungary and Finland allow 160 and 171 weeks, respectively.

Today in Germany, I doubt a baby carriage would be left unattended without concern, shame, or risk of arrest for neglect and endangerment. I’m not certain, but I think possibly Japan or Singapore might be the only countries where it remains safe enough to do this.

Summary: Relationships fed through unexpected generosity helped people navigate shortages and overall lack of goods.

Folks in the DDR often spoke of “Vitamin B” (pronounced “veet-uh-min bay” in German). This was shorthand for “Vitamin Beziehung.”

Beziehung means relationship or connection. One way people would show their loyalty and friendship to each other was through quiet, unexpected gifts and services. I saw this repeated many times the semester I was there.

I was visiting the family of one of my classmates. Her parents lived in a small town, and her mother owned a photography shop. She insisted on developing and printing all my black and white photos free of charge, despite my repeated protests.

This was well before the era of digital cameras. At the time, color film and prints were pretty uncommon in the DDR. I had taken color photos during my Christmas break in Hungary, but pictures came back with muted colors and sepia tones. They looked faded and old, fresh from the fotomat.

So the majority of photos I took during my time in Rostock and the DDR were black and white. My old Asahi Pentax Spotmatic performed well. I even found and purchased some screw-mount lenses in the DDR for it.

One day, I accompanied my friend’s mom to the little grocery store. She bought a few items (eggs, butter, milk, a few vegetables). The grocer slipped an extra wrapped item into her bag. Nothing was said, although there might have been a slight nod or a smile during the exchange. We waited until we got home before unwrapping the package to find a fresh cucumber.

It was quiet and subtle, a private exchange, not an ostentatious or gauche public display of one’s largess. Thinking back, people standing nearby might have glimpsed it, but they said nothing and registered no acknowledgement.

This was “Vitamin B” in action. The grocer was showing appreciation, loyalty, and generosity to my friend’s mom, who probably had done, or would do, favors in return for the store owner.

In a society filled with imagined and real informants and Stasi collaborators … where goods, especially fresh produce, were easier to find in a private garden than at the grocery store … where customers normally could not touch or handle objects before purchasing — perhaps Vitamin B provided a moment of warmth, connection, and loyalty between human beings. I have to wonder if the prevalence of Vitamin B dissipated after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Summary: FKK and nudity in Germany

Germans are quite comfortable with nudity. The majority of beaches I visited in both West and East Germany were either topless or fully nude. Some beaches were nude except for a small “clothing” section … which was topless.

The Germans have a term for this: FKK. FKK stands for Freikörperkultur, which translates to “free body culture.” To them, there is no immediate, inextricable association between a nude body and sex. It’s just a body.

On one occasion, a German friend who visited me in Tübingen needed to change her clothes. So she did, right there in the dorm room next to two American guys (me being one of them). Off came her blouse and pants, and on went another set of clothes. No fuss, no hesitation, no embarrassment.

At the beach, it’s not just the “beautiful people” who go without clothes. Mom, dad, uncle, aunt, grandma, kindergartener — everyone goes without restriction or coverage. One sees all body types, from skinny to corpulent, and from baby-smooth skin to flesh that shows the inevitable sag, scars, spots, and wrinkles of time.

I had to admit, this was a great way for kids to learn about bodies. Rather than the homogeneous forms in human biology books and health class, or the unrealistic and enhanced figures in advertising and adult media, here was a way to see and acquaint oneself with the human body in all its sizes, forms, and ages.

Coming from the fairly prudish USA, this took some getting used to for me. Visiting the beach at Warnemünde, I found it especially awkward getting nude in the company of students I sat with in class.

All the insecurities and fears hounded me. What would they think of my body? What if I do something embarrassing? What if I become … excited?

After about 10 or so minutes, having seen it was no big deal to anyone else, I relaxed and willed it to be no big deal to me, either. I began to enjoy the feeling of being free and unrestricted.

No sand chafing under my waistband or getting wedged elsewhere. It felt … great. I grew to really enjoy this unique experience, although I had to be careful to avoid sunburn.

After returning to the US, my first trip to the beach was in Newport, Rhode Island. My first instinct at that point was to drop my swimming trunks, run across the sand, and leap into the ocean.

If I had, my friends would have been mortified, strangers would have reported me, and I would have been arrested as a sexual deviant and danger to others.

I cannot help but wonder which approach to nudity is more healthy for the individual and the society.

Summary: Chatting and laughing with kids on what was to be the last International Workers’ Day in East Germany.

May First is celebrated as “Labour Day,” or “International Workers’ Day” (the US and Canada celebrate it on the first Monday of September). The holiday was started in the late 1800s by socialist and communist political parties to commemorate the 1886 Haymarket affair in Chicago.

Workers were striking for an eight-hour work day, police killed eight of them, and a bomb and ensuing gunfire killed seven officers and at least four civilians. Although the holiday is observed around the world, it is unsurprisingly an especially big event in socialist and communist nations.

In May 1989, I was visiting Froburg, a small town about 12 miles south of Leipzig. This was the hometown of Dörthe, roommate to one of the other American students studying in Rostock with me. We enjoyed the hospitality of Dörthe’s parents who toured us around the area.

On May 1st, there was a parade through town. Marchers carried banners with slogans such as “Fight the Fascist Capitalists!” The parade ended at a town hall and most of the people went inside to eat and drink.

Hanging outside were three grade-school kids, maybe 2nd, 4th, and 5th graders. Let’s find out what good little socialists these kids are, I thought to myself. So I approached and engaged in a conversation with them (in German, of course).

“What does this day mean to you?” I asked.
“We don’t have to go to school!” they exclaimed gleefully. Kids are the same all over the world!
I continued, “you probably can guess that I’m not from Germany, right?” They nodded. “Where do you think I’m from?”
“Ummmmm, France?”
Nope.
“England?”
“No, but you are getting closer,” I replied.
They scrunched up their faces and pondered, and gave up.
“I’m from the USA,” I finally revealed.
“Ah, USA,” they repeated.
“Do you where the USA is?” I asked.
“No!” they answered in chorus.
“Is there anything, anything at all you know about the USA?” I persisted.
They thought about it for a while, and then the youngest struggled out an answer: “Die USA ist ein kapita… kaptital…kaptitali…”
“Ja, Die USA ist ein kapitalistischer Staat” (“yes, the USA is a capitalist country”).
“Does anyone know what that means?” I asked.
“No!” they all responded together.
We laughed and continued talking.

I enjoyed hanging out with the kids. One of them removed the little red scarf they all wore as young “pioneers of the revolution” and gave it to me. I still have the scarf. I’ve also kept a copy of an East German newspaper from May 1st, 1989, covered with anti-capitalist slogans like the ones on the banners from the parade.

The fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the DDR would occur just six months later, but in that town, chatting and laughing with those kids, I would never have predicted it. I cannot help but wonder what became of those kids, who now would be grown and likely have children of their own.

Updated August 2, 2021:

With the help of another former exchange student who still lives in Germany, I made contact with a reporter for a small monthly newspaper in Froburg. She agreed to post these two pictures along with my message asking for help identifying and locating these three kids. The July issue of the Frohbuger Nachrichten was published, and you can find the entry on page 24.

Within days of publication, I received email from the former little boy, named André, and the older girl, Peggy. Peggy writes she was 13 when the pictures were taken, and her younger sister, Susann was 11. The two sisters are both married with children and living in Bavaria. André is their cousin. I hope to continue corresponding with the three former children and learning about their life journeys.

I also received an email from the roommate to one of the other American exchange students to Rostock. I am delighted to reconnect and am thoroughly enjoying the memories that are coming back as we continue to correspond!

Summary: German sounds difficult for English speakers, perfecting my accent, and getting complimented or insulted for it.

I knew I’d never pass as a German during my year abroad. My thick, black (at the time) hair, my facial structure, and skin tone ensured I’d never be mistaken for a local.

That goal was even more impossible in Rostock, where my clothes (especially my shoes) and demeanor gave me away. So the best I could strive for was to avoid being immediately identified as an American.

To do that, I had to rid myself of my American accent in German. I might have succeeded … or not.

Although I’d had three years of German in high school, I started over from scratch in college; and that was in my sophomore year. I progressed quickly with lessons five days a week, and developed an appreciation for the language I’d hadn’t had before.

I must admit having an attractive and excellent university instructor with a lovely English accent made navigating the complexities of German adjective endings, noun genders, and irregular verbs much more bearable.

As my measly single year of college-level German progressed, the idea of studying abroad during my junior year really caught hold. But I worried that a single year of college level language wouldn’t suffice.

My professor told me I’d do fine if I took an intensive summer language course. URI would be acceptable (I was already in Providence studying at Brown University), but she said if I could get accepted to Middlebury College, that would be the best. I applied to Middlebury, and happily was accepted. So after completing my sophomore year I boarded a bus for Middlebury, Vermont.

I don’t know if it is still this way, but Middlebury College turned into a campus of many language schools during the summer. There was the German School, the Japanese School, the Russian School, and so on.

We in the German school all stayed together in one dorm, ate together, studied together, and played together. Upon arrival, I immediately had to sign a pledge that I would speak No English the entire nine weeks at school.

Lessons were rigorous, but there was a lot of fun, too. We put on a production of “Die Fledermaus,” watched movies in German, and had a lesson in German wine etiquette (the drinking age in Vermont at that time was 18).

Total immersion is The Way to learn a language, and not only did I begin to think in German, I began to dream in German … and I hadn’t even left the States yet!

Just two weeks after completing my studies at Middlebury, I flew to Frankfurt where I was met by my German friend, Natascha, who drove me south to Tübingen. During that drive, I learned about one of the ways English speakers fail to speak precise German.

There are several sounds in German that are not in English and must be learned. The obvious ones are the vowels with umlauts: ä, ö and ü. These simply must be learned and practiced, and I felt I reasonably mastered them by the time I got to Germany.

But there were some consonant sounds I still had to perfect. “Ein Bißchen,” as I learned it, or as is now spelled, “ein bisschen” means “a little bit.” Roughly, you pronounce it “eye-n biss-chen” (with the understanding that the “ch” is not a sound found in English).

In German, there are three sounds that many English speakers reduce to two, or even to one in some words:

s, ss, or ß = the same English s sound found in “stop,” “east,” and “seven”
sch = the same English sh sound found in, approximately, “English,” “shell,” and “usher”
ch = this is the sound many English speakers struggle with, because it is not found in English.

One way to make it is to form your mouth like you are going to make the ee sound (as in “beet”). Now simply breathe out without vocalizing, or make a long “h” sound like you are about to say “he” (with no vowel).

Now back to “ein bisschen.” Many English speakers, which included myself at the time, just mashed the ssch together into a plain old “sh” sound: “eye-n biSHen”.

Natascha drilled me from Frankfurt to Tübingen to make the two distinct sounds: SS followed by the German CH sound: “eye-n biss-CHen”). I practiced and practiced. Being aware of it, I heard many British and American students say “eye-n biSHen” throughout the year.

The other dead giveaway that you are not a native speaker is the R sound in German. Most Germans roll their R, but it is not at the tip of the tongue. Rather, they roll it at the back of their mouth.

Most English speakers roll their Rs on the tip of their tongues the way you might hear in Russia, Spain, or Finland. Rolling the r at the back of the mouth is difficult, so I would walk the streets of Tübingen, relaxing my jaw, wetting my palate, and practicing my rolled back-of-the-mouth r: rrrRRRrrr, rrrRRRrr, rrrRRRrrr.

As the year progressed, I would often be complimented on my accent, and when I’d ask if they could guess where I was from, Germans often guessed I came from countries other than the USA or the UK. I took this as a big compliment. There was one time I might have been mistaken for a German native … or not.

My friend Bill and I studied together over the year, first spending a semester in Tübingen, which was then in West Germany, then a semester in Rostock, still in East Germany at that time. At the beginning of the year, we made a pact never to speak English, except with Germans who wanted to practice their English.

In Tübingen, we may have been regarded as elitist by many of the other native English speakers when they gathered to smoke, drink, play cards, and speak English, but we were there to learn German.

One day in Rostock, Bill and I went to a restaurant. It was a large, cafeteria-style place, and as is common, we were seated at a table with four strangers (something I rather like, actually). Bill and I sat across from each other and chatted in German in between bites of food.

The four others were young men, maybe 18 or 19 years old, who looked like they had come off a construction site. They were wearing overalls with dirt stains, and they just stared at us while Bill and I ate and visited.

Finally, one blurted out, “Seid ihr Sachsen?!?” (“Are you guys Saxons?!?” … Saxons come from Saxony, which is an area of what was southern East Germany, including Leipzig and Dresden).

We laughed and answered, “no, we are from the USA.” “USA?” they repeated in disbelief. “Why would you come here?!?” We replied that we wanted to learn German and to come see things in East Germany for ourselves.

One fellow just looked at the floor, shaking his head in bewilderment repeating, “USA….USA…”

Anyway, we enjoyed chatting with the young men for the rest of our meal (why, why, why did I not take a picture of them and get their names?) and walked back to our dorm in high spirits at having been mistaken for native Germans. We really had done it! Or had we … ?

As we walked, an uncomfortable realization dawned on me. Whenever soccer teams from Leipzig, Dresden, or Karl-Marx Stadt came north to play Rostock, the fierce rivalry often boiled over into physical violence between rival fans at the train station.

“You know, Bill,” I realized, “had we actually been German, those may have been fighting words!” First, the guy used the informal form of “seid ihr” instead of the polite “Sind Sie” form to address us. In addition, if we hadn’t been Saxons, that could have been taken as an insult, and if we were Saxons, it could also have been an invitation to fight.

Oh well. Insult intended or not, I still am proud to have been accused of being German and remember the experience fondly.

Summary: Recalling where I was (East Germany) and what I remember on the 30th anniversary of the Tienanmen Square uprising and massacre.

30 years ago, I was in Rostock, East Germany. I had studied one semester in Tübingen, West Germany (south of Stuttgart), and now was spending one semester studying in Rostock, in the former East Germany.

My alma mater, Brown University, had had an exchange program for over 10 years with Wilhelm-Pieck Universität. Students had been going to Rostock, and East German students had been coming to Brown years before the Berlin Wall fell, a fact which surprised many then and still does today.

Anyway, on June 4, 1989, a psychology professor of mine invited me and fellow exchange student, Louise, to his home for dinner. I recall he picked us up in his Wartburg 1000, an East German car that was tiny by all standards, but still a significant step up from the iconic and notorious two-stroke East German Trabant (“Trabi”).

We enjoyed a pleasant dinner with his wife and son. After dinner we were watching his small black and white TV … and there was the Tienanmen Square protest. I remember watching in silent horror. You could have heard a pin drop. So many thoughts ran through my head; most significantly, “Could that happen here?”

At the time, the Iron Curtain had cracked open between Hungary and Austria. I’d spent Christmas in Hungary, and my Hungarian host, László, was amazed by how openly people were talking about politics and discontent with the government: public conversations that might have led to arrest and imprisonment only months or weeks earlier. I saw many of the aforementioned Trabis crossing the Austria-Hungary border, returning back to the East with what appeared to be college dorm cube refrigerators strapped to their roofs.

Most East Germans I met did not want to leave East Germany. They simply wanted to visit friends and relatives, check out the west, and purchase western goods. I recall only one person who wanted to escape to the west by way of Prague and Hungary, then crossing the open border to Austria (and allegedly succeeded).

Regardless, I would not have predicted the Berlin Wall would fall for another decade, and I just checked with Louise, who confirms she felt the same way at the time. The East Germans privately complained about oppression, government corruption, the hated Soviet soldiers stationed in their country, the requirement to study the Russian language, and more. But I did not get the sense that this discontent would translate into action anytime soon.

Louise recalls my professor took us out to a deserted hunting lodge, served us Schnapps, and asked us what our roommates thought about politics. I don’t recall this at all. She feared he worked with the Stasi (“Staatssicherheitsdienst” – State Security), and was trying to possibly get us to inform on our classmates, so she revealed nothing. She also remembers the professor’s son talking about getting black armbands to wear in solidarity with the protesting Chinese students.

I do remember watching West German TV in their home, which I think really surprised us as I assumed that could have gotten you in trouble. I remember many of the Rostock people looking down on their Saxon (southern E. German) neighbors, who couldn’t receive West German TV broadcasts due to the signal being blocked by mountains. My recollection is that they considered Saxons particularly uniformed.

I finished my semester in Rostock, and stayed for a one-month German summer language course. Students from all over central and eastern Europe converged at the university to improve their German.

I met and befriended students from the USSR, Latvia, Hungary, Croatia (then still Yugoslavia), and more. Some of the girls (especially the Russians, as I recall) were unambiguous about their goal of marrying a westerner in order to escape their home countries. I have friends who recently traveled to Moscow and reported similar experiences.

It was only a couple months after I returned to the US for my final year at Brown that the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989. Louise remembers her roommate telling her it was happening, and responding that she must have been mistaken. I remember watching it unfold, gripped with dread that soldiers would open fire, tanks would roll in, and a massacre reminiscent of the one in China 5 months earlier would ensue. It was much to my relief that this did not happen.

Apart from a brief day trip across the border from Switzerland, I have not been back to Germany in 30 years. A good friend of mine of 34 years, Frank, is a lawyer working in Berlin, and his office straddles what would have been the Berlin Wall back in the day. I have a strong desire to return to Berlin and to Rostock, and may very well do so this fall.

I’ve been flooded with memories from 30 years ago when I studied in the former East Germany. Although I would never have expected it, that year turned out to be the last year of that regime as the Berlin Wall fell just months after I left. I have started this blog to recount my memories from that extraordinary year.

For more information, I recommend you read my About page.