emories of East Berlin agdalena Bienert he Peak, Simon Fraser University RNABY, BC (CUP)—I grew up in East rlin. My mother was 35 years old, single, and an or when she had me. To have a child as a sin- mother was no problem in the German pmocratic Republic (GDR). You were viewed equal and got enough support from the state. t I suffered in elementary school thanks to my 1 mom; she waé at least 10 years too old, and I fered from a weird name—Magdalena. Like all the other kids, I wanted to be a bneer. If you didn’t want to be an outsider or ract attention, you had to be a Pioneer. Also, if wanted to be able to go to university later, had to choose your career at an early age. You H to follow the socialist program right from the EC. Every child was proud to wear the ceremonial e bandana and Pioneer-emblem emblazoned ite blouse to special events—like changing the p in the schoolyard. At school we commemo- ed deceased communists, recognized good pils for special achievements, and truants for ir bad deeds. We also had Pioneer afternoons. bce a week, the classes and teachers met to ke crafts and talk about our great country, our ssian friends and other “brother countries.” ne time, I really didn’t want to go to the neer afternoon. I told my mother, and she bwed me to stay home. The next morning, I H a bad feeling in my stomach. What was my use for being absent the last day? My mother H, “Try the truth. After all, they tell you that h have to be honest.” I stood in front of my ssmates and told the truth. It was so shaming! teacher couldn’t believe it. She dressed me n, and I got an especially mean writing exer- P as punishment. Being a Pioneer was the first step in making s conform. It was an adaptation of the social em, which actually had a lot of the qualities of Hictatorship. When people got arrested for monstrating against the government, they had stand for hours in basement garages without king, eating or going to the washroom. They I to learn their lesson: there was no resistance inst the state, the state that they “elected.” prybody was obliged to vote. If you didn’t, ly came to your home and marked it in your sier. verybody in the GDR had an individual file. someone was considered politically conspicu- , they had a special file, controlled by the istry of Safety of the State, and called SATs. s recorded every social or political activity that ple attended, as well as their circle of friends how well they conformed. They put bugs on ple’s telephones. Friends and workmates were td to observe them and report to the Stasi, the ES & £2 888 Bs RE Baa (eRe rowing up on the Wrong Side of the Wall secret police. The Stasi wanted one of my moth- er’s friends, and they came one night to talk to my mom. They took her with them—without me— to get information about this friend. They thought they could blackmail her more easily when she knew that her baby was alone in the apartment. Because I was often sick, pale, and thin, my mom decided that I should stay in the hospital. I stayed there for a horrible four weeks. They tried to make us all happy and healthy children. I refused to eat the disgusting pudding soup— intended to make the kids chubby as soon as possible—so I had to sit for hours in front of my plate until I finished it. I peed the bed—the toi- lets were meters down the dark hall, and I was too scared to go. I wouldn’t play nice with the other kids, so the nurses read a letter from my mom that said I should change my behaviour and be a good girl. She was ashamed of me and wouldn’t love me anymore if I didn’t. They read this letter in public. Of course, if you ate too young to read, you believe what the nurses tell you. In East Berlin, the govern- ment said you had to wait at least ten years before you could get a new cat, school was six days a week, and church was frowned upon. Travel was possible only to the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, and Russia. We had _ bananas oranges only at Christmas. We had to wait a couple of hours in front of the door of and the supermarket to get a shopping basket in order to be allowed to enter. To get “Western fruits,’ you stood for hours in a long line. Nobody missed the chance to get a little taste of the West. I always thought the West started right behind the Berlin Wall. I thought that the colourful world, a place where you could buy everything and were free to do so, began there. In reality, the other side of the wall was often just as much of a wasteland as my own side. In Intershop, you could buy everything from the West with expensive Western money. When my “West-aunt” visited us, I was itching to go with her to this little paradise. I wanted decorative pens with Snoopy on them. When I got a cassette tape recorder, I looked for tapes with tales for Western children where the witches were blonde and cute, and had brooms that were called “mashed potatoes.” They weren't like the ugly, scary witches in the Russian fairy tales, witches who had spiked skulls in front of their houses. A lot of people were very happy in the GDR. They say life was easier and more human there. There was no unemployment, every child got a place in kindergarten and there were “holiday camps” where the kids could travel together at a lower cost to the parents. Whether life in the GDR was good or bad, I often wonder how people can forget that they lived in a controlled system, a state where you needed permission to visit your family just because they lived on the “wrong” side of the Berlin Wall. Fourteen years ago, my mother could never have imagined that I’d be studying in Canada, looking over the mountains and eating Campbell’s soup—the tins she knew of only from the prints by Andy Warhol. Ricken nRne + Ve