2,315 kilometres from home...
Hello everyone! Today I bring you a very interesting topic, and what better than to tell it from the city that went through it and where I've been living for almost a year. I'm super excited about the two weeks that are coming, full of exhibitions, music, events... But also days of empathizing, thinking and reminiscing. One of my favourite phrases is and will always be the one that George Santayana once said: "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it".
The idea of writing this post came to my mind yesterday when my mother sent me some photos that you will see below, from no less than 30 years ago. In those days, travelling was rare. At least in the way we do it now and with the facilities available to us. But, as I and those who know them say: for my parents, limits never existed. The couple in love, with their eighties vibe, decided to take their car from Madrid and spend their holidays travelling all over Europe. Kilometre after kilometre, they arrived in the ghost town of Berlin, or that's how they remember it. Who would have thought that 30 years later their daughter would be living there? They always tell me that they wanted to go as far as Croatia but had to turn back because of the tension on the border with Yugoslavia just before the war broke out.
Mum at the Berlin Wall, 1989
Dad at the Berlin Wall, 1989
My company has also started to feel the anniversary: Emails summarising parts of the history, plans to walk around the city, photos of the office itself before and after, like the one you see below. That photo makes me understand why the building is so well protected. Hence also why Alexanderplatz is grey, ugly, plain, but with its history almost intact.
From divided city to city of freedom
This Saturday, 9 November 2019, the images of the fall of the Berlin Wall celebrate their 30th anniversary. Many events will deal with themes such as reunification, the construction of the Wall, the division of the world during the Cold War and the overcoming of the Wall by the Revolution of 1989. Events related to the above take place, not only in the run-up to 9 November, but throughout the year. And this is one of the reasons why this city has made me fall in love with it and why my time here is literally flying by.
A bit of History - The City of Freedom
Conchita, my former history teacher, would be very proud of me if she knew everything I have learnt so far, having lived in territories with a long and hard history such as Poland, Krakow or now Germany, Berlin. For those of you who don't know, in high school I was a history nerd (and lazy), to the point that I went to September with that subject for two years in a row.
But hey, it's never too late to re-learn and re-train. Travelling has helped me to live the history of different places on my skin, learn it with my steps and retain it with my eyes, and basically, that's my learning philosophy for now (how deep I've gone). So, in honour of Conchita, I reflect my historical gifts for curious people who want a bit of a link on the subject (information mainly absorbed in Free Tours, curiosities of the city, people...).
The Berlin Wall was a security wall that formed part of the inter-German border from August 1961 until 9 November 1989. This 3.6-metre high construction of reinforced concrete marked the radical separation between the Soviet-controlled German state called the German Democratic Republic (famously known as the GDR) and the NATO-controlled German state.
This construction served to prevent mass emigration from East Germany and the Communist Bloc to the West after World War II. It reached a perimeter of 155 kilometres. The punishment for crossing it illegally was death. It is estimated that 300 people died at the hands of the guards guarding the wall. However, more than 5,000 people managed to cross the wall alive and find freedom. In short, the wall divided the city into two parts for 28 years, preventing citizens of the same nationality from living together.
The collapse of this construction marked a different era for Germany, and democracy and freedom were born.
It will be hard for you, as it is for me, to think that it is only 30 years to the day that one of the most shameful structures in the history of mankind ceased to exist. Sometimes I think about it when I pass elderly people in the street: in which sector would this man be? would this woman be separated from her family? would this grandfather have a secret or a story to tell? I would love to speak perfect German so that people who have gone through it could tell me in their own voice all those things that we may never know about so many cases that have gone through it.
My small reflection that I draw from all this is that it was only possible to defeat this totalitarianism from within, with the culture, faith and perseverance of a people that many believed to be innocent and useless. The Berlin Wall did not fall, but was torn down.
I would also like to stress that what we are celebrating now is very nice, everyone is very happy, it is a historic event, blablablabla, but let us not forget that in 1989 there were 11 walls left in the world and today there are more than 70, covering some 40,000 kilometres. I think it's a figure that we read about but we can't even imagine physically. So I will give you as a 'little' fact that this number is equivalent to the circumference of the Earth.
The "Trump wall" between the United States and Mexico. Not so far from my hometown, the fences separating Spain and Morocco, the "security barrier" between Israel and the West Bank... The Berlin Wall was supposed to be the last, but 30 years after its fall, walls are still being erected all over the world. And worst of all, it is predicted or foreseen from the mouths of today's politicians that this number will continue to grow in the future.
I firmly believe that solidarity is key and a decisive weapon in building a better, freer and fairer world. The problems ahead of us - and which affect the field of defence and security - cannot be left to "expert commissions", but must involve public opinion in many countries, and will need clear ideas and moral principles.
To finish and return to the topic of Berlin, here are some photos of the events I have been to this week. Much more to see and much more to enjoy in this little paradise of freedom.
Thanks for reading me! See you soon 🙂
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