Just Another Brick …

Can one historical event wipe out another one?

It was 30 years ago today the Germans tore down the Berlin Wall.

It was 81 years ago today the Germans tore down the Jewish Society in Germany.

The Night of Broken Glass.

I know I should not and can not compare these two events. I was not even born on the first one and I can hardly remember what I did on the day of the second one. One was on a Thursday, the other one on a Wednesday.

I was in my late teens then, prepared and ready for social and political statements, but beginning to hide out from parts of the social life at the same time. Sounds strange? Maybe it is. The world was smaller back in those days, especially on my country side of the two separate states of this former big land that made so many mistakes in the past. TV and radio were our sources of information. The internet was only a distant rumour. Smartphones were only part of science-fiction.

I was near the iron fence, on the right side, the Western side, fortunately. On bright and clear days I could see the peak of those mountains that already were on the other side of the border. I was near and yet very far from those things and misunderstandings happening in Berlin that day and night. And since this was a Thursday I was probably watching some guy called Wim Thoelke hosting one of few quiz shows called 'The Great Price' on German television.

What was it to me that hundreds of people from Eastern Germany stormed the inner German border that night after some official of the Socialist Unity Party gave a slightly mistaken answer to a press conference question concerning new travel agreements for the people of the Socialist state of Germany? What was it to me that the high expectations of the people forced the Eastern German government to open the toll-bars and fences? They are all coming over here now.

And we saw the German Reunification the following year.

And what is it to me today? How did all this affect my own personal life? I have met some new colleagues and co-workers who originally lived on the other side of the fence. And I have seen some distant relatives from over there a little more often than I did before 1989. That is what I know.

And, of course I know that not all the Germans took part in the progroms against the Jewish Germans some 81 years ago. As much as I know that not all Germans tore down the Berlin Wall on that Thursday night in November some 30 years ago. And they did not literally tear it down completely on that day. It took years and years to make the visual traces of the separation disappear. And it seams to be an on-going process.

Does the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Eastern Socialism wipe out other historical events in the past? Did it all come to a happy-ending? Are we all living happily ever after now? I do not know. But I do not think so.

History is here to remember and to learn from. History is here to remind us all to try not to repeat it and its' mistakes.

The world is bigger and closer today. Information and news, true and false, come in quicker and faster. But there is nothing queer as folk. We are all living in bubbles for one or another reason. We try to simplify things. And so the walls in our heads are still there. Some folks are even crying out loud for new walls that had to be build for safety reasons made of stinginess, hate and fear

All I can ask and hope for is some sense and reason, because after all we are all human beings who just want to live their lifes in some kind of freedom and a little happiness. Sounds pathetic? Maybe it is.

Serious thoughts of a simple mind.

Bromford out.

Today is Saturday, the 9th of November 2019.