There’s a framed poster that hangs over my staircase. I
bought it thirty-five years ago in a museum gift shop outside Checkpoint
Charlie, one of several crossing points between West and East Berlin. Berlin
was a divided city after Germany’s defeat in World War II with the Western
powers controlling West Berlin and the Soviet Union controlling East Berlin. In
August of 1961, the East Germans erected a barbed wire barricade which was to
become the Berlin Wall. The wall was actually a series of barbed wire barriers
and concrete walls with trenches and guard towers in-between, forming what has
been called a “death strip”.
In 1981, twenty years after the construction of the Berlin
Wall, I stood before it, standing in the American section at Checkpoint
Charlie. I walked right up to the barbed wire and photographed the wall but
when I got too close a Communist soldier in a guard tower pivoted and pointed
his rifle at me. He was in his 20s, possibly younger than me at the time. I
didn’t think he would shoot an American and precipitate an international
incident. Then again, young men often don’t think with a broader, mature
perspective. He might well have shot me. I took one last picture and backed
away. Yet it is an eerie feeling to have been singled out and targeted by a
rifleman.
The wall was built to keep East Germans inside East Germany.
Despite emigration restrictions, 3.5 million East Germans had defected,
crossing into West Germany before the wall was constructed. The initial barriers
literally went up overnight. Families in different parts of the city were
separated once Berlin became a divided city. Children were separated from their
parents. The poster I purchased in the gift shop after my encounter with the
Communist guard was of a photograph taken the day after the wall went up. A
child, perhaps five years old, stands behind the barbed wire trying to reunite
with his family on the other side. A teenaged East German soldier violates his
orders not to let anyone cross the border, parting the barbed wire with his
bare hands so the boy can crawl through. But he’s not looking at the boy or the
sharp barbs cutting into his hands. He’s looking away to his right to see if
anyone spots what he’s doing. The photograph doesn’t need any words because the
expression on his face tells everything you need to know. His face is contorted
in a paroxysm of fear. The stark terror in his eyes is palpable. He knew what
he was doing. He knew the risk he was taking.
A museum guide told me the boy made it across to rejoin his
family, and that the young soldier was caught and executed. This was what
Soviet domination of Eastern Europe was all about. This was why America was the
philosophical enemy of the Soviet Union. Freedom was one of America’s most important
foundational values. Separating families, preventing citizens from leaving,
barbed wire, armed guards, building a border wall, and executing a teenager for
letting a little boy rejoin his family – these were antithetical to American
values. I bought the poster, framed it, and hung it on my wall above my
staircase where I see it several times every day going up and down the stairs.
It is a constant reminder that freedom isn’t free, and that many brave
individuals risked -- and like that unknown East German soldier -- sacrificed
their lives for the freedom of others. It is a reminder not to take for granted
the freedom we have enjoyed in this country, which is not universally shared.
Six years after I visited the Berlin Wall a Republican
president, Ronald Reagan, called on the leader of the Soviet Union to “tear
down this wall”. Two years after that, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.
I pass that poster every time I go downstairs to watch TV. I
turn on the news and listen to the current Republican presidential nominee talk
about building a wall around our border. It will undoubtedly separate families.
Will the wall have barbed wire? Will there be guard towers? I wonder who will
guard the wall. Will these guards shoot young children trying to cross the wall
to be reunited with their families? Or will they in turn be shot if they aid
the children like the brave young East German soldier in the poster? What has
happened to our American values that the Republican Party’s battle cry would go
from “tear down that wall” to “we’re going to build a wall”? Guard towers and
barbed wire are the tools of dictators, Nazis, Communists, and totalitarians.
They are not the symbols of freedom and certainly not the symbols of America.
In two weeks, Americans will, both individually and collectively, be presented
with the opportunity to define or redefine American values. On November 8, the
world will be watching.
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