From East Berlin to West Ireland (452)

33:05Juli:and it doesn't really add up and you live through this madness and you don't fully understand it. You then have those two sides. You watch Western cartoons and then you go to school and don't say it and you get really good grades for talking about the class enemy. So in regards to bigger politics, we have on our national news, It was always how well we are doing, how great the harvest is this year and for the next five years and how amazing the production lines are going. And then there was about five minutes or so was on the Western or national or international politics, I should say, or worldwide.

33:50And the main things that I remember is that West Germany was absolutely the class enemy. America was the last of the last. And we really, as sad as it sounds, we have not learned to actually think for ourselves. It took a long time after the wall came down to even have an entrepreneurial mindset or to try something new or to finish something that doesn't suit your lifestyle anymore. Because it was this ready set life that was set for you, apprenticeship or study, the one job, and you were just led into it. You didn't really have a lot of choice. The government decided what job you were going to be doing.

34:39And you had really no choice about that. The notes you sent me, you went to somewhere called Pioneer Republic.

34:50Juli:Tell me about that. I nearly forgot about that. So based on my academic performance, I guess, you got something like a, what would you call it, like a reward, a reward trip to this pioneer republic. And so we got six weeks away from home, like a summer camp. And little did I know that it's all very politically tainted as well. so I can't remember that there was school school so that was the reward I guess and so maybe no maths and literature but we had to as a group and they came I suppose they came from all of the republic not just from Berlin we had to sit together watch this East German news reel every night one of us got picked on the spot like I I found it so difficult I had such a heartache each each night of hopefully not being picked and on the dot to on rather the German news to basically, yeah, have a political opinion, have a political stand without saying anything wrong.

35:59We had to do little cartoons about America and all was just absolutely bananas. It was a complete political camp and anything in sports, for example, PE, let's say there was a lot of PE in that camp actually as well but it was also at that young age I think I was 12 at that age we were when we instead of throwing a ball or a shot putty thing we it was always hand grenades against the enemy so we had you know for throwing and measuring how many meters you can show the thing it was always hand grenades against the class enemy at that age. Did you find yourself getting indoctrinated and believing the propaganda oh oh well to a certain um to a certain extent i think none of us because you're so in it and again i have to stress that that there was no internet and no other books you know we had a little bit of the western channels and so we watched western news as well in my family and there was definitely that two-sided feeling of wow watch which part is true you know and even the advertising that you know how they make even really really crappy burgers look so well on advertising so we thought we are missing the world there we are missing you know like i really thought if the wall ever comes down the first thing is a burger in one of those really terrible places.

37:33I thought this is the world. So we knew there was something not adding up, but the extent of everything when the wall came down to see how much has been so indoctrinated and so tailored to the needs of the government. And let's say even the role of the Stasi, the vastness of it, I don't think we could have even seen it. Like there was definitely stuff. We were in it. We were brainwashed very, very cleverly, very gentle and fast and deep, you know. I mean, did you sort of struggle to deal with those contradictions? because you're hearing at home sort of like different information to what your teachers are telling you.

38:30Was that a challenge for you? Did you ever entertain thoughts, for example, that your parent or your grandmother was not betraying the state but obviously telling you that the state wasn't all it was cracked up to be? No, that's funny, actually. that even when you said it I kind of felt this peculiar oh god no it was almost the other thing I was like I was definitely on my granny's side completely and thinking oh we need to protect that because let's say because I was there most weekends and on the way going home she always said don't say that at school you know that was like and I was such a quiet like I really thought everything to true I think from young age anyway but she still had the need to say that each time because how much can you trust a 12 year old for example to not let anything slip at school when when stuff was being read out or so so she had the need to say that every time and almost make me promise I won't talk about it at school but I almost felt like the loyalty to my granny was way bigger you know there was and and especially and that coincides probably with the time with western telly in in my life and seeing other news and hearing like just other even when i didn't understand it necessarily because you had nobody to bounce it off with either but to think oh oh, there's a war in this country or there's a whole continent called South America.

40:14So there was definitely that I just held the space somehow for it without, I do think it's probably trauma in one sense, but you know how brains adapt as well. And you just survive this as well without fully understanding what's happening. I think maybe even though it sounds dramatic, but maybe all of us have been to a certain extent holding that trauma within us at the time, you know, without realizing. I think one of the themes I find very common with former East Germans that I speak to on the podcast is that you almost have two separate lives. You have your life in public and how you behave in public, and that would include at school and with your workmates.

41:05And then you have your private life where you can be yourself and talk more openly about how you feel about the state. Yeah, yeah, that makes complete sense. and that's exactly I couldn't have said it better so I can only second that but then there's always more isn't it and when the wall came down for example my best friend she took her because you could get your stasi file your state security file and she took hers out and then you do see who actually even of your neighbors or of your even friends who may have informed on you as well and put stuff together of information. So I consciously chose not to get my file.

41:58And I was 19 when the wall came down. And I felt that I don't even care. You know, I only just in the last year of before the wall came down, when it all started to cook a bit, I started living that life as well. And I started going to those Monday demonstrations under the roof of the church. and for us it really started with you know the Tiananmen Square the shooting there in China on that place yeah and the West German channels obviously reported it on the day and after and so I saw that and so I was an 18 year old I think and I saw that and I was so deeply like emotionally affected because they were like my youngsters you know they were like me and the western yeah that that was the western news and the eastern news said nothing at all and I watched for two or three days and I was in June I think and and I watched and I watched and nothing has been reported and I think that was my personal my very personal flipping over to this is not right you know from I was coming from oh I'd love to see the Egyptian pyramids at some point because I had seen a documentary on western telly and as a 12 year old or so and having this dream that I thought it had never happened to after Tiananmen Square I felt this is just not right you know and then it completely flipped to the other side and being 18 and 19 is a really cool age to make history then you know absolutely and i want to come into that in in a moment

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44:36Every plan,$15 a month, even unlimited. That's it. Happy ending. Zero tears. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months, $90 for six months or$180 for 12 month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. With your friend with her stasi file did she find anything in there that surprised her the the what's it the absurdity of it all was that neighbors and friends they took the time and the the whole administration and the money that it all must have cost to say stupid things like oh the whatever her second The name starts with the W.

45:24So it was the W dot. So they didn't call her even the full name. So the W, they don't own a car. And she seems to be getting on with her husband. But sometimes we hear noises at night. And on Sundays, they seem to cycle to the family. To the family, cycle as a family around the lakes or something. And sometimes there is this and this work colleague visiting. And it went on and on like this. So there was nothing even in there. And people just found stuff to write down. And what it includes, like, we think it's just a piece of paper that has been typed. But that includes already two people. that includes the actual informing person sitting as we are now sitting, sitting with the guy that works officially for the Stasi.

46:19The other one was called informal. And the other one that got paid by the Stasi was the guy then that said, okay, I'll sit down with you and you tell me everything and I'll type it out. So every single report that was written, as slow and profane it sounded, involved an hour of two people sitting down and reporting on somebody. It's the banality of the information that's in those files that always surprises me. But then I guess if you're an informer, you need to look as though you are providing information. so you know that there's there's probably sort of amounts in there that are made up or just so that they can give give give some information but it's interesting i mean it it's it's a it's a tricky one because you know i've you can imagine if you're somebody working in east germany in whatever job and you don't know the wall is going to come down in 1989 and the stasi say to you if you don't tell us about your neighbors and what they're up to your children will not go to university and will have very poor jobs you know you you'd like to think you take the moral high ground in that situation and refuse to do that but i don't know it's it's tough and the stasi were very clever at that psychological pressure.

47:58Juli:Very. And it actually, Ian, I nearly forgot about it, but it actually happened to my mum. I just had totally forgotten this, but I have exactly what you said as firsthand information. When I was about 16 and my mum got this visit, a two-hour flat, two-hour place calling with his briefcase and they disappeared in the living room for whatever an hour or two and I had no idea what it was and he when when he left my mom was literally pale as a sheet and said oh my god you don't know what to do so she told me everything and she she at the time worked in the office for the company that did all the repairs for the embassies so like heating and plumbing for the embassies.

48:50And what it meant was the plumbers, electricians, tilers, they saw how the people live and the diplomats live. And so this Stasi guy approached my mom to basically inform on her colleagues exactly for that. How's the mood? What he wanted to know? How do they feel about the discrepancy of how places look, how the embassies look, what they have what they see there and my mom was absolutely like she was frozen she was so fearful she said I don't know what to do I don't know what to do and now that you say it I literally said exactly what what you just said I said to her just pretend just just do and that nobody says and they're all and maybe wow yeah there's a golden tap but so what and just don't give anything away and so and I know he visited I don't know how they announced themselves or if they just literally called I mean even if you think that the invasion of privacy to just call to your flat like this like my mom had no idea that this person is calling that day in that that evening that time and so I know that came two or three more times and it fizzled out and then the wall came down anyway but she was really really stressed over that and just did her absolute best to not say a thing you know because they were all great guys I remember even the names like they're really really good colleagues you know and that's the last thing you want to do.

50:30It's really interesting to hear you know about that that level of insight your mum remarried didn't she yeah she remarried when i was about four and like on a very personal level it's all you know she was probably so lost and so having lost the love of her life but on a on a more political level with you here is that your man was 14 years older so a little bit of a gap there and i didn't get on with him personally he was he had been married four times before he had for children and he clearly didn't like children at all and so that didn't that didn't help my upbringing but what we know now at the time I think my mom was just dazzled by this somebody that knows how to live and is 36 and has a ladder which was a Russian car where every normal person in Germany had to wait about 10 to 13 years to buy a Trabant.

51:36Even if you were to have those 10 ,000 marks at the time, the production lines were so slow that you had to still wait. You just had to wait roughly 10 years for your Trabant. And anybody who doesn't know how the car looks should Google it because it's just this tiny little fiberglass car. It's not even metal. and we called it cardboard at the time but he had a ladder later we had a volga and there was so we didn't know much like I definitely was disconnected from him and he didn't take much heed of me as a child so there was no conversations but I do know now looking back he came home three four times a year with hampers from from West German stuff like not expensive stuff but we didn't even have pineapple in a tin, you know, those cheap tins probably from Aldi or so.

52:34But to us, it was like something so big, so big hampers, like genuinely what you get at Christmas in the supermarkets now. He came home with those. He still kept a flat for himself. So I now look back and think this is where interviews happened or investigations happened. He came home quite late often and so those were the sure signs to have been those privileges only fell to Stasi people so now like I lost touch my mom separated from him when I was 16 so three years before the wall came down and I still didn't know at the time I still didn't fully realize because he had his story for coming home late was that he was being a taxi and we didn't have enough taxi ranks and taxi drivers in East Germany so people privately just trailed the streets and drove around to see if somebody needs a taxi for a few bob for a tenner and so he was saying to us he was doing this like driving around as a private taxi and but when the wall came down and we started reading up and knowing about how western products look and about the cars for sure like that is the surest giveaway that he had access to much cooler russian cars than anybody else that i knew fascinating fascinating so julie i'm just trying to get my head around all the grannies here your Your mum's gran was the one that fled from Ukraine.

54:15You had relatives in the West. What about your dad's mother? Was she still in the East? Yeah, so my dad's mum, we stayed in touch, and she was definitely an amazing granny to me. And I think I was about 14, so this granny worked a little bit higher up in a state library and where all the probably the bigger books that not everybody had access to could get but still

54:44Juli:again all censored we are still talking eastern block books and her lungs were bad or something and she got a trip to west germany to sanatorium and she got it given because she was so trustworthy worthy working for this library. And she got given that trip. And little did they know, my granny, she literally fled. She fled the sanatorium and made it even further north of West Germany. And she never came back. So I was really happy for her. I was already at that age to think we are the imprisoned ones. And we are the ones behind the wall, really. And so it was amazing in one sense that I couldn't get my head fully around it, but I know that I felt cheerful for her.

55:41But my uncle, which is my dad's brother, really, he said he had to endure numerous interviews by the Stasi. What did he know? Where could she have gone? Quite probably interrogations, which I think he also played down a bit. And then, so little did any of us know that the wall will come down, there was no contact whatsoever. And that was the real loss for us, that I had lost a granny overnight. And he lost his mom, like my uncle, and suddenly she wasn't part of our family. But when the wall came down, we learned that she had written that every letter got intercepted there was like nothing she had sent stuff and passes nothing had gotten true like they literally even to have this whole apparatus of of bureaucracy you know to somebody in the post to keep an eye on all those names of all those people where you want to intercept letters it's quite mind-boggling I think after like looking back on it absolutely absolutely Absolutely.

56:51And this was 1984. She fled the GDR. So you would have been about 15. Yeah, I was 14 or 15 then. Yeah, 13 or 14, really. But also interesting, because we talked so much, you know, we were really, really close. And she taught me a lot. And we also talked politically. But she also didn't feel she could say this out loud. you know she like i had no idea she'd be so unhappy somewhere along the lines that she would flee the country you know that so and it just shows and i like i know i was just a child but equally i don't think she told her own son or she told my mom you know that's like how careful you needed to be with a plan like this to actually not tell you know that must have been quite a reunion when you met her again after the wall came down yeah and she came back to berlin because she she did miss it she did miss berlin she missed her family so she took up with her sister then in the west of berlin so i'm not really sure like looking back i wish i would have asked more questions that only come to you when you are older like how she may be from the north of Germany, West Germany, how she didn't maybe fly into West Berlin and be with her sister already.

58:19But I know she stayed on the North Sea in quite north of West Berlin. But yeah, that was something else. And definitely at a time when we didn't expect it, you know, we kind of at some point you make peace with that that person is not able to get through even with a with a love letter or anything you know so we're moving on to the sort of later part of the 1980s and you you mentioned earlier that sort of like a switch flicks in your head in this period that you realize this isn't right that you know that the state is lying to me and you I think the phrase you used is things started cooking in East Germany yeah yeah definitely Berlin had that advantage I guess of the of being able to receive the Western channels and the funny thing is I I think the Stasi at some point almost couldn't keep up because legend goes that they also checked the areas and knew who's watching Western telly and everything.

59:34But at some point, it just was exhausting to keep tabs on everybody. And so we had this information. We knew we are definitely being lied to about what happened in China. and there was this whole movement that the church, funnily enough, opened the doors and said, because the first demonstrations happened and always on a Monday. So I don't know how the very, very first happened, but I was very quickly in it and part of it. And the churches said, you are safe here and we can chat about it and young politicians or students student bodies came and everybody sat together and chatted and that was the first time I experienced kind of violence from the state because suddenly the water cannons and the gas throwers and gas bombs were out and it was exciting it was exhilarating but it was also like I was worried that I get you know that I don't get home and I wasn't sure how do you get to see your mom again and there was no we didn't even have a landline you know most people didn't have a landline there was just public phones and so there was this young madness and excitement but also a deep deep knowing that this is it's the only way to do it it's the only thing to do now because you know more and And I have no idea how it swapped to the other cities that didn't have Western channels.

1:01:17And again, before mobile phones, before text messages, I was studying in Leipzig, which is in the south of East Germany at the time. And suddenly, and like I know I didn't start it, but suddenly there was Monday demonstrations as well. And it literally snowballed over that summer and right into November. and it was thousands like it was suddenly thousands and the western channels obviously reported so we could see ourselves you know chanting we are the people and we want to travel you know the madness is we didn't want to leave home really we just wanted to travel and we wanted to be able to say a couple of things and so we could see ourselves on the western channels demonstrating in the east and then suddenly seeing it in the north in the south everywhere and that was pretty much there was certainly it was like sending you a text on the mobile phones because suddenly we could see it's happening everywhere and we are actually connected so were you at university in leipzig i was that kind of shows you as well how you didn't get necessarily what you're looking for because I had straight A's.

1:02:37I had everything. I was hoping to study psychology at the time, and I didn't get it because I didn't know the right people. And so I had to look last minute for an apprenticeship. And that's also actually an interesting one. And it was very last minute, the good stuff was gone. And it was called, it doesn't exist anymore. It was called professional bookseller. So you had a two-year apprenticeship where you were taught everything about literature and art and everything about how to run a shop and accounts and money and but also about all the publishing houses in the east. So we had to learn from the 70 publishing houses that all did censored books.

1:03:24We had to learn the profile, who they cater for, the series that they're printing and that's what I did in Leipzig the apprenticeship for that two years of that That sounds like a great course. I've always fancied opening a bookshop. Yeah, it was really cool. We also learned how to wrap books. And so I'm the best present wrapper because that stands to me now. But the madness was when the wall came down that all the publishing houses fell away. So everything that I had to learn so meticulously suddenly didn't exist anymore. And I have one good story where like thinking for yourself was definitely not favored either.

1:04:10There was a day when the shop was really quiet and I was quite bored. And I took it upon myself to decorate the window and just thought, oh, there's Mother's Day coming. I do something with it. And I got into so much trouble for taking initiative because it just wasn't you you had to do what was taught on the day so it was a great course I learned a lot about literature but then again Russian and German literature but it still opens opens your eyes to the world a little bit more isn't it and it's it's different than school as well and you have differently time I was away from home it was like a boarding school So we had also time to make revolution, you know.

1:05:01Yeah, yeah. I love the fact that one of your skills you picked up in East Germany was being able to wrap a good present from working with books in a bookshop. That's brilliant. That's brilliant.

1:05:19so the you know the demonstrations get bigger and and bigger there's a couple of other things you mentioned in your in your notes you talk about oranges from Cuba for Christmas oh yeah people ask me were you not allowed to smile in East Germany or did you all wear gray clothes so those things are definitely myths but we definitely didn't have stuff and we also didn't have. It's also not true that we never had bananas, but it was so far and few in between that you could count them for your lifetime. And so Cuban oranges were definitely available at Christmas, but also rationed. So you maybe got a kilo.

1:06:06So and what you did then was, let's say my mom and myself, we queued in two different fruit shops within our district, and we had two kilos between us and we i don't even know why we did it because they were quite dry they were exactly the ones that not an ounce of juice from it you know but it was something different to get in the first place um and but what we learned later as well that the government did a clever thing for the berliners because and maybe to keep us a little bit calm because we can get other channels we see there's another world out there they favored the berliners there was definitely there was more cuban oranges there was if there ever was bananas they kind of went to berlin there was a couple of brands of ice cream that tasted better that was only for berlin so and we didn't know it at the time like i was definitely not aware until the wall came down that we were favored in that sense yeah i've heard that from people who lived further afield from berlin that they didn't get the supplies that you know they when they came to berlin they were like whoa yeah what's going on here and i think berlin was a bit of a showcase typing a whole book of walter yanker what's the story there well that's an interesting one I this was a he was a communist by his own description.

1:07:38But he also got in trouble behind the wall and he went to a political prison in the east because he was stuff that we never learned, like the 53 rising and 17th of June, little mini day revolution. So he spoke about it and he wanted to, he was a communist through and through, and he wanted to stay in the country and he wanted to just make it better, like a lot of people actually. But he got in trouble, he got imprisoned for speaking up and speaking out. And he wrote a book, Difficulties with the Truth. And I cannot remember, I must have gotten a copy. and but then again no copiers we only had typewriters and the little blueprint paper so what i did for my friends to and a friend of mine reminded me about five years ago he said i still found found your copy so i typed this whole book by three with the blueprint paper for my friends to have access to this book to to read about to read about by tayanka and the difficulties with the truth and i had completely forgotten it only and only when like the podcast now prompted me to when you said just just think about a few things and then i remembered but i had forgotten completely for 25 years but those were the things that you literally just did because you had no other tools you could only do what you could do and i could type it up you know but i couldn't copy it anywhere i couldn't take photographs and print it and bind it somewhere so i must have sat there at night or some at some point and type this book for two weeks or something wow wow and you know potentially for distributing that you could have got into quite a bit of trouble i guess yeah the thing is i think it was a whirlwind for me because my own awakening let's say once more about what happened in China on the shooting on the square to the wall coming down was so short that I was just I was invincible you know and never thought anything could happen to me but my then boyfriend for example had a brother or yeah a little bit later so I didn't know that story then when I was totally going for it and he had a brother that was six years older and he did exactly that at uni.

1:10:16He distributed a few leaflets, very simple freedom of travel, freedom of speech. And he actually went to the same prison as Laita Yanka. He had to be there. And he literally, when the wall came down, he was so broken by it. Like there was so much anger, I could tell. He couldn't even speak about it, you know. he was only a youngster as well just merely like a handful of years older than me you know and it's but it was then it was a whole generation because he had those five or six years ahead of me being differently awakened and taking action at a time let's say in 84 when it was so tight there was no way to get away with anything like that in 84 As part of the educational curriculum in East Germany, you would have probably had to work in a factory.

1:11:16Did that happen to you? Oh, yes, everybody has had to. And I think it was quite often it was almost to keep the production lines going as well, I think. I don't think it was much for our education, really. I think we just helped the production. And so we had to walk in the morning then like a factory worker. and I was in a factory that did all the breaks for the trabant for the cars. And so, but it was literally, everybody was put on a different production line and you did eight hours, you put in a full days of work in a very industrial smelling and loud hall, I guess. And up to this day, like I'm talking 40 years later now, something like this, I just don't forget there was one mistake I made but it went through somehow and I think I wrote for about 10 years of my childhood that maybe somebody will have an accident because that break was faulty and so that's another little snippet but yeah we had to do that and obviously it was sold to us as an idea for education but you know and how to see how how how the social system even works and how great we are that was always how great we are and how well we are doing but looking back I think because it was so flawed as a system we were literally helping the production lines I think they used to put the army working in the on the farms and things like that to keep agriculture going as the economy was was struggling so Julie my favorite question I love to ask my guests where were you when you heard the berlin wall had opened oh ian i'm almost not ashamed but it's so mad like we were in a theater pretty close to the to the wall because the theater line is kind of close enough to the brandboger gate where we couldn't get close to we had to be about 150 meters away but then left of it is where the few theaters were that we had So we were at a show, I was with friends and when we came out of it at 10pm or so, there was people heading the opposite direction, like direction for the Brandenburger Gate and they said, oh the wall is open.

1:13:43And we said, fuck off. Basically, we literally said like, yeah, right. And we thought they were drunk and I went home that night. I went home, didn't believe it. Like we just, I mean, what the hell? and so all of us went to sleep next morning we went to uni I studied after the apprenticeship then we went to uni in Berlin and one of my friends had this really weird tabloid newspaper in her hand and said I was over there and it was like oh my god that was the biggest face palm ever So what we did, we all mitched and bonked off school that day of college. And we all went home. We got our passports.

1:14:28We sat at 12 o 'clock at that and that border passing checkpoint. And so we gave everybody enough time, each other. And we were still afraid. We were still afraid to be shot. And in the tabloid actually was the wall is open. and the wall is, you know, the borders open. So we weren't sure if we are going to make this or if we are being shot. So we literally went almost hand in hand, like 12 or so people, like my friends at the time, to cross the border, to cross the show our passport, got a stamp. We still weren't sure will we be let back. And I still remember that feeling because we actually wanted to go back home.

1:15:12It wasn't that we wanted to flee. We just wanted to travel and have the freedom. And so I spent my day just driving around on a double-decker bus and seeing everything. We were, every East German got a welcome present of 100 marks. So, and they were everywhere at every corner, lashing, doling them out. I don't, I can't remember how they kept track of not picking it up twice. but anyway I went on the bus that was all for free I got this not so good burger in one of those places hey you finally got your burger I got the burger I bought a pair of way too expensive jeans for 60 marks at the time but I wanted really cool jeans because I wanted to look really pretty and I bought licorice I bought a meter of licorice for my mom who besides the her set of paints she always spoke about how the West German licorice how we could never have licorice since so I got her a meter or two meters of licorice and came home at whatever 11 at night or something so spent 12 hours in the West and she was quite taken aback that we could just pass on the way back they didn't even look at us.

1:16:35And at the weekend, then I went with my mom because my mom had to still go to work. And she was only 39 at the time. And which is so young, like it's more than 10, it's almost 15 years younger than me now. But she felt at the time she was almost sad. And she said her life was taken and was over almost that she felt at 39. There's like everything was taken from her and I have it so good at 19 that I experience like the wall coming down but that didn't turn out to be true either because there was so much life to be lived you know but she had to work then whatever Thursday and Friday and on Saturday we went together went back on the buses discovered the area and yeah amazing well that must have been quite quite a time going there with your mum who'd last seen it sort of when she was aged 11 yeah was she just amazed at what it was like or i think i think we were i'm not sure if shock is the right word but i i do believe it didn't fully hit us for a year or something you know we did it i even got a job in the West then, you know, like a few months later, I had Western money.

1:17:56I earned once a week, you know, just to support my studies and had Western money, which was so much more worth. It was five times worth the Eastern money. So I could go for lunches in the West and stuff. And I did all this. But I don't think it fully registered, you know, like only looking back and telling stories and people say, God, there's a book in you or my kids not even getting it because the actual places or the political system is gone. Hi, this is Rhonda in Virginia, and I support Cold War conversations because I think the work that Ian is doing is critically important. I think it's vital to record the firsthand accounts of people who lived and experienced the Cold War because it illustrates history in a way that a book never can.

1:18:48So thank you so much for the podcast. It's my favorite podcast and I look forward to it every week. To be like Rhonda and help to preserve these incredible stories of the Cold War. As a monthly or annual supporter, you'll be able to listen ad-free, you'll become one of our community, get the sought-after Cold War Conversations drinks coaster as a thank you, and you'll bask in the warm glow of knowing that you're helping to preserve Cold War history. Just go to coldwarconversations.com slash donate to find out more. Hey, are you still there? That's great. Now, if you're enjoying the podcast and you listen via the Apple Podcasts app, you can leave a written review.

1:19:32Positive reviews really help me gain new listeners, so hit that pause button and give me a five-star rating. thanks very much for listening I think it didn't hit us fast it just slowly trickled in that oh wow we are really travelling and my first travel then was in fact the Egyptian pyramids that's where I went to see them and did it live up to expectations totally I went with my best friend who picked up her Stasi file. So we are the best travel buddies anyway. And she got sick. She got the revenge of the pharaoh, how it's called. So I had to, you know, help her to all of that. And we got chased at a market because we bought.

1:20:29And then we had to buy this perfume of those guys. And we went into all the tourist traps that you could. but yeah I never just the Sphinx even to see this huge monument in the middle of the beginning of a desert yeah no I never that was one of my biggest memories of travel you know because it was the first yeah wonderful

1:20:59when you crossed over with your friends that first time What crossing point did you go over? We went up Bernauer Straße, Bernauer, and it's in the eastern part is Prenzlauer Berg. It's close to Mitte, but it's another maybe 10k to Checkpoint Charlie. And Bernauer Straße. Yeah, so it's the French sector, I think. Yeah, yeah. There, yeah. Yeah, and it's actually where the houses were so close to the wall that even the people, like they couldn't block everything off. But there was those towers as well. And anybody that lived there, I had a friend there, they were really instructed by their own family, don't not wave, don't engage, don't aggravate them.

1:21:50And so, yeah, it's a peculiar crossing point. And that's actually what that is the same crossing that I mentioned earlier, Bernauer Straße, where they made this open plan museum, really, where you actually see the tunnel diggings and the house bordering directly onto the west. So it's an amazing place actually to visit anybody who's going to Berlin. It is. I mean, as you say, it's where the Berlin Wall Memorial is. and you get a real sense of what the wall fortifications look like there as well. They've sort of reconstructed the section with the death strip there too. So when you first cross into West Berlin, does it live up to expectations as to what you thought it would be like?

1:22:42Because I've heard different... The reason I'm asking is, and the reason I asked what crossing point you went over, is I did interview one guest who crossed into Kreuzberg over the Oberbaum Brooker and said it was a right dump. It was a real disappointment because there was litter everywhere and graffiti. Yeah. Well, the thing is that we also felt, because A, there's the death strip for starters as well. So there's this long thing where you don't know even what's happening yet. And then on the other side, like my memory is also, not disappointment but also oh okay the houses are gray here too so that was that was one of my first thoughts um and then even on the bosses like but I loved it I love to see that little bit further than just where people think oh you have to see the kudam or something like this big avenue and so I must have gone through areas that were very maybe even social buildings or very working class, very also dirty looking that I also thought that's interesting.

1:23:51I definitely found it interesting. But I also ended up on the coup d 'un. That's how I ended up with way too expensive jeans. And there was pure glitz and also not a true reflection of West Berlin, to be honest. But I do know that the party feeling, the welcome that may have changed then over the next few months or so. the welcome like literally people hugging and crying and throwing bananas off lorries and all the weird things that happened it was that party feeling of oh my god that freedom that i took home you know like i pretty much had bias regret two months later and thought oh damn those jeans were way too expensive they don't even suit me you know i was definitely in the wrong area you know to buy them and we had no clue really what we were doing but the the beauty that i remember is that party feeling of the welcome feeling of you are the brothers you know you're the sisters and and and i know it had changed then and there was definitely it was politically very hard to unify and to see how it all happens with money and industrial production lines and everything but there was definitely the first months or so was this joyful I almost took it we did it you know I had that feeling of oh my god look at us we did it that's how that's how I felt you know yeah well you did I mean you know you were you were on those demonstrations how how did your mother fare after the wall had opened as far as work did she keep her job or did she have challenges in terms of getting work yeah she definitely had challenges because she worked for this fact this company for the embassies still at that time and then there was definitely changes because suddenly the east german political system it was crumbling and so the embassy started being less so she was at some point not immediately but at some point she was laid off and there was a time also a fear and anxiety because the one thing we didn't know was unemployment you know and to find your own way and to look to to further yourself like that just not in our psyche at all and so I know I remember that she was definitely afraid of it a little bit down you know I know there was tears and she had like who will employ me now and and definitely going to the Arbeitsamt the unemployment office which to us felt degrading or like definitely not the place you want to be and but then she found another company that did pretty much the same like heating and plumbing and servicing for just a normal a normal setup within like not for embassies and then they moved on then she met somebody lovely for her life so and they together founded a company again heating and plumbing and then they never looked back then they were their own bosses oh that's a that's a lovely ending to the story but how did how did you end up in ireland julie oh yeah that is you know when you make plans and then life happens as well.

1:27:26And with my then boyfriend, who I mentioned earlier, who had the brother that was in political prison, we spent quite a number of years together. And after one particular holiday in Berlin, and we went paddling and camping, and he was kind of not a city person. And he got almost a little bit down. And a colleague of his said, why don't you mind my holiday home in Ireland, in Boyle of all places in the middle of nowhere. And what started off as a joke was materialized because we didn't really have money. I was still studying. And I said, oh, we could cycle there, you know, and it was a little bit of a joke, but also not because I was a good cycler, you know, and cycle to uni every day.

1:28:14And so was he. And so we got good bikes over the course of a year, We got good bikes, good camping equipment. And the plan was to stay for one year and just do this. And so we are not together anymore. But we both fell in love with the country. So that's 28 years ago or so. And both of us are still here. And we just loved it. We loved the people. The weather seemed to be a little bit better then than it's now. But I definitely made a life here. I had three children, you know, an amazing love and running my own business. So this is where life is for the foreseeable future. Oh, that's lovely. That's lovely.

1:29:01And did you know English before you came to art? I mean, had you? Not really. And we had a bit of school English, but it was really like, my name is and I love the London Underground. and that's that's probably as far as it went you know like we had we had russian till the cows came home um blew into us like bet into us every day of the week and english maybe an hour a week or something for some reason they allowed english which is quite interesting i was wondering about that later but yeah one hour but nothing to write home about nothing to hold a conversation and it took it took a while it took me two years of headache when people talked you know and it went fast and add the Irish accent and but I remember very very slowly to be able to have less headaches follow a little bit and I remember one breakthrough where I listened to from the Beatles on the radio Norwegian word and I literally it flicked also in my head and I could hear the lyrics and I said oh my god it's a story it's like they're really telling a story there and so I you know and then I started reading books and you have to once you're in the country it's the only way really to learn it isn't it yeah yeah no it is you've got to just immerse yourself in it i mean i your your accent is amazing because i can i can hear the irish in there and i can still hear some of the the german in there but that's a sensational story you shared with me i love that lovely i'm glad to it was actually my kind of niece-in-law and her her her fiance who said it when we met first he got introduced to the family and he said, have you ever listened to them?

1:31:06And I said, no, but I'm always on the lookout for good podcasts. And literally that's how it came to be that I contact you. I just thought, let's see if I have enough to tell you if you're interested. And so I go back to the family with the link. It's a fascinating story. I mean, have your kids asked you about your past and what was it like living there? Yeah, I think so. My kids are between just gone 19 this week and 26. So to them, and when they were small, we always spent two, three weeks every summer visiting granny and hanging with the cousins kind of thing. And I think what they find the hardest to understand is that we stand in a place and it's the country, it's the physical geographical country.

1:31:59But in that place, there was the stasi and in that place we weren't allowed to see and they find that really they found it for years and they're so difficult but now that they were a bit older for the last 10 years we started going and did let's say the the wall museum the gdr museum the tunnel tour you know where people dug and it's starting to add up for them and my youngest asked me now to write down all the stories and almost like a legacy anything that comes to mind you know and i started the book i started last month for just like a notebook but you never know what comes out of it yet either but yeah they are they're definitely they're definitely intrigued and they are also i think a little bit proud you know that it's they should definitely be proud of you yeah there's a story and yeah but they want to know now more they are there at that age where they realize i'm kind of looking i'm doing the same and trying to get more stories from granny who has passed and they see me searching for certain answers so they are now seeing that if i was to write stuff down now or chat now that they don't need to do it then when it's too late well julie i'm very grateful you got in contact with me delighted that we've captured your story and really looking forward to sharing it with our listeners yes thank you so much and i'm 100 delighted for the opportunity i can't wait actually don't miss the episode extras such as videos photos and other content just look for the link in the podcast information the podcast wouldn't exist without the generous support of our financial supporters and I'd like to thank one and all of them for keeping the podcast on the road.

1:33:59The Cold War conversation continues in our Facebook discussion group. Just search for Cold War Conversations in Facebook. Thanks very much for listening and see you next week.

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