56. Claudia from Salzburg

Excerpts from a letter Claudia wrote to her family on Friday, February 19, 1971, from Salzburg, Austria. She recounts their trip through East Germany to visit Berlin.

Last Thursday we took our trip to Berlin—that was really neat and interesting! Especially the train ride through East Germany and our visits in East Berlin. The country in East Germany is really beautiful—it’s sort of like a pastoral view of the 1890s—with beautiful rolling hills and patchwork fields of green, the quaintly architectured buildings which must have been built ages ago, the rivers and streams that flow across the country and the men with their wagons pulled by horses. The little towns were almost deserted—you didn’t see anyone walking around and there weren’t any cars to be seen. It was all a pretty picture but kind of sad in today’s world of advancements.

When we went across the border into East Germany we stopped at a train station for the East German guards to check our passports. The train station wasn’t like any i’d ever been in—it was empty except for one woman with a suitcase and the gob of guards that swarmed onto the train to check us. That was a freaky and exciting experience—we had to just sit in our seats and be quiet, we weren’t supposed to laugh or anything and no books (especially political science books) were to be out—the guards could confiscate anything if they wanted so we had to be quiet and good and not aggravate them while they looked at our passports and stamped them. We were checked by several guards to make sure none of the other guards had let anyone slip in who shouldn’t. Absolutely no rights then and if we got into trouble the U.S. government couldn’t even help because we don’t recognize East Germany as a country and we don’t even have an American embassy there.

There was a marked change from the empty oldness of East Germany to the bustling newness of West Berlin, where the streets were full of cars and people. Being almost totally rebuilt after the war, West Berlin is a very modern city like New York or L.A. We stayed in a hostile there which was large and really quite nice—I was expecting it to have one big long room with straw mats to sleep on—the girls at one end and the guys at the other with the directors and their families in between—but it wasn’t like that at all! There were three sets of bunk beds which were really comfortable and we had feather blankets that kept us snuggily warm—it was a very clean, nice place. But I understand this was an exceptional hostile—most of them aren’t quite that nice.

Friday we had a tour of West Berlin—including the wall, which is miles of wire and concrete—there’s a platform you can climb up and look out across the wall into the East. It’s hard to explain the feeling it all gives you, I wish I could. The day was gray, foggy, overcast and dismally dreary, but it seemed to exactly fit the atmosphere and situation. It’s really sad to look across to see an imprisoned people who can’t even do likewise.

Saturday we went on a tour of East Berlin—the buildings there are a lot older—some haven’t even been really repaired since the war and even though they’re different colors the whole city just seems to be varying shades of grey. East Berlin does have a charm of its own though that West Berlin doesn’t really have—here are all the old historical buildings of Berlin and the cultural center of former times. Being rebuilt after the war, the West doesn’t have that.

Sunday we went back to East Berlin and had the neatest experience! Two teachers from Frankfurt am Main took us around and explained everything to us. They were so nice! One took us clear through the museum of German history and explained it to us—it was interesting to see how even though they had presented the facts, the East Germans had kind of colored the history the way they wanted by emphasizing certain things—it was neat because the teachers could point out a lot more of this propaganda to us and we would have missed a lot. They also took us to the Paragam museum which has the altar of Zeus and a lot of other stuff from ancient cultures—that Altar of Zeus is enormous! It was really interesting!!! and those two men were so nice to take the time to show us around like that—they were so cute. One kept apologizing for his English, which was really quite good—he hadn’t had an opportunity to use it in twelve years. Goll, I wish I could speak German that good!