“It was an inspiration to see the beginnings of a recovery and signs of freedom.”
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A nice story——you were very lucky to have seen the “before and after” of the city.
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It was truly an inspiring experience to see both the before and after photos. The other problem of course is that East Germans were not allowed to leave their country. My official state guide (I was traveling as a journalist writing a story on East Germany’s economy) was an attractive woman in her 30s, I would guess. She wore a bright red beret.
After spending a fair amount of time together, as she took me around the city to meet people to be interviewed, I got to know a little bit about her. She had kidney disease and was on dialysis. She said she wanted to travel to the West but because of this problem she could not.
Of course, she was deluding herself. She could probably get much better treatment in the west. It was her way of convincing herself that she didn’t need to travel. People were literally living in a prison called East Germany.
And, by the way, the East Germany economy was a wreck yet was routinely described as the marvel of the eastern block. Just like those apartment buildings, they were still using machinery from the 1940s and refurbishing it.
One West German economist said that East Germany kept everyone employed by taking a job one man in the West could do and then giving it to ten men and paying them practically nothing to come to work.
The only good thing that came out of this is that the East German embassy in Washington invited me to a reception for Katarina Wit, the beautiful figure skater who had won a gold medal at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics and would go on to win another one in 1988 in Calgary. She was a stunning beauty in person. Also very vibrant and charming and smile that would knock you dead.