{"id":1235,"date":"2009-12-28T14:45:46","date_gmt":"2009-12-28T14:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/28\/repost-best-of-dont-gel-2009\/"},"modified":"2015-10-08T12:27:46","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T19:27:46","slug":"repost-best-of-dont-gel-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2009\/12\/28\/repost-best-of-dont-gel-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"RePost: Best of Don’t Gel 2009 – The End of the Berlin Wall: Twenty Years Ago"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Brandeberg<\/a>
\nThis is the Brandenburg Gate<\/a> in the center of Berlin. The first time I saw it, in 1974, there was a wall built right through it.<\/p>\n

\"Gate<\/a>
\nHere’s a photo of it then, from the Hotel Adlon<\/a>\u00a0website.\u00a0 The hotel stood, from 1907 to 1945, when it was decimated by a fire, just to the left of the Gate.\u00a0 It was the stopping place for\u00a0world leaders and socialites and was rebuilt shortly after the Wall\u00a0fell.<\/p>\n

Because Berlin has such a dramatic history, it was always exciting to be there — maybe more so while the wall remained.<\/p>\n

\"180px-Checkpoint_Charlie_1977\"<\/a>
\nI remember especially coming through Checkpoint Charlie<\/a>
\n(that’s it on the left) on a dark fall day (Americans were allowed to
\nvisit for the day after going through this scary border station and
\nhaving cars and packages searched) and, as we approached the Gate,
\nseeing an old man standing, looking over into the West.\u00a0 In his hands,
\nclasped behind his back, was a rosary.\u00a0 Not so popular in communist
\nEast Berlin.\u00a0 I recall thinking immediately “Oh.\u00a0 His daughter is
\ngetting married in the West today and he can’t go, and he’s standing
\nthere, thinking about her, praying for her.”\u00a0 Berlin in those times
\nlent itself to imagining such things.\u00a0 The drama was palpable.<\/p>\n

The first time we went to Berlin after the wall fell, I remember, it was
\npouring.\u00a0\u00a0 Oblivious to the weather, we walked back and forth beneath
\nthe lovely arches in the now-open gate, kind of giddy at what it meant
\nto the people of Berlin and all those who care about freedom and, I
\nguess, redemption.\u00a0 For despite what happened in Berlin during the war
\n(and we’ve studied it extensively and spoken both with survivors and
\nthose involved in the rebuilding of the Jewish community<\/a>) the Wall caused immeasurable suffering and was a diabolical slash through the heart of the city and every one of its people.<\/p>\n

I’ve written about Berlin<\/a> before: from its playgrounds<\/a> to its grim Communist years<\/a>.\u00a0 We go there often.\u00a0 It seems to pull us back, its intellectual energy
\nand re-emerging Jewish community irresistible. Once, when we’d taken
\nour kids there while the Wall remained, one son, around 5, bought a
\nstuffed wool pig and told everyone he “got it out of jail.”<\/p>\n

\"Berlin<\/a>
\nHere’s one last photo – of two buildings: one redone and the other still old and rickety, in the very cool neighborhood of Prenzlauer Berg<\/a>, which is in the old “East Berlin” and now, last I heard, had the highest childbirth rate in Germany and was home to artists, writers, musicians and fashionably cool people who don’t have to work.\u00a0 What you see stands for it all:\u00a0 the struggle to renew, still only partly complete.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the Brandenburg Gate in the center of Berlin. The first time I saw it, in 1974, there was a wall built right through it. Here’s a photo of it then, from the Hotel Adlon\u00a0website.\u00a0 The hotel stood, from 1907 to 1945, when it was decimated by a fire, just to the left of … Continue reading RePost: Best of Don’t Gel 2009 – The End of the Berlin Wall: Twenty Years Ago<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,27,9,97,51,52],"tags":[313,81,308,310,311,309,312],"class_list":["post-1235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aging","category-current-affairs","category-politics","category-television","category-webtech","category-weblogs","tag-313","tag-berlin","tag-berlin-wall","tag-communism","tag-east-german","tag-fall-of-the-wall","tag-wall-anniversary"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-jV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1235"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3487,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235\/revisions\/3487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}