It's not always greener on the other side
In her short story "Place of Birth: Berlin," Monika Maron describes her memories, feelings and emotions when she thinks back of her upbringing in East Berlin. She was born when Germany was separated into East and West and "As my parents' child, I was not allowed into the West."
German children who grew up before 1989 had very different childhoods based on whether they were born in the Western or Eastern part of their country. The general perception of West Germans is, that childhood must have been troublesome in the East. True, East German kids did generally have fewer toys and fewer opportunities to go on holiday. Whether that really made them unhappier remains hard to prove.
The majority of people associate East Germany with the negative site of communism, but there were many positive influences as well.
Eric, who was born in East Germany remembers "I was born in 1978 and spent most of my childhood in Penig, a small town in the Southern part of East Germany. My father worked in a factory, my mother in a shop. We lived in a typical Eastern German apartment block, just like most other ’normal’ people at the time. I was not really aware of any political system. I only started to think about all this later in life, when I realized how much socialism made East Germany different from the West.”
The Spiegel, a very well know and respected magazine in Germany conducted a poll of two generations of Eastern and Western Germans in order to provide a progress report on the extent to which unification has taken place within the national psyche. A full 92 percent of 35-to 50-year-old East Germans believe that one of the greatest attributes of the former East Germany was its social safety net, with 47 percent of their children in the East believing the same thing. By contrast, only 26 percent of western youth and 48 percent of their parents expressed the view that East Germany had a strong social welfare system compared to today's.
1984, five years before the wall came down I was born in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, one of the five states that belonged to East Germany at the time. The only memories I have from this time is being mesmerized by David Hasselhoff and driving in my uncles baby blue Trabbi every weekend (original picture below). I was too young to realize that Germany was split and we "Ossis" (a slang word from people who were born in the East) were different from the "Wessis" (slang for people from the West). The fall of the wall and the opening of the borders didn't make a difference in my life, but I do remember that the supermarkets looked different on Christmas than the years before. The lights and decoration looked modern compared to the old Santa Claus the year before and I remember our small town grew bigger and more markets and stores opened up quickly. I was born in East Germany, but not until I grew up I noticed the difference or how "the Wende" affected my family and what people think of East Germany and us "Ossis."
My mother told me once, that she misses certain things about the East. When I was born in 1984 she had a secure day care place for me even before I was born, as well as a secure job which guaranteed her not to fire her, because they knew she has a child and was a single mother. Nowadays day care places are not guaranteed anymore and are sometimes so expensive some people cannot afford a place for their child. She also told me that the government regulated health care, meaning that every six month she had doctors checking up on me while I was a baby and gave her exact nutrition plans and everything else she needed.
My mother was born in1962, only one year after the wall was built. She only knew how life was in the East part of Germany until 1989. She has good memories and positive experience growing up in East Germany. She grew up in Rostock, which she has lived her whole life and just like Monika Maron she made many memories in that city. My mother remembers her youth in the FDJ (which I will go into details in my second blog) and her work environment where she earned bonuses by being a good worker for the country. When my mother moved away from Rostock seven years ago she experienced that some people to this day still have the "wall in their heads." People still divide "Ossis" and "Wessis" and make jokes of East Germans. Differences between eastern and western German youth are no longer as dramatic as they were within their parents' generation.
She misses her hometown and cannot wait to return once she retired. Rostock (picture below) is all she knows and all she always felt the most comfortable.
"A feeling came over me that I can't explain to this day, a feeling if disquiet and delight in equal measure, for which the only appropriate word is love." Monika remembers her childhood and the city, where she made so many memories. The city, where she was "happy or crying, alone, in company, in love, out of love."
Work Cited-
"East Germany." Spiegel. Web. 05 May 2012. <http://www.spiegel.de/international/topic/east_germany/>.
Maron, Monica. Place of Birth: Berlin. Berlin Tales. Oxford UP. Print.
Marven, Lyn, and Helen Constantine. Berlin Tales: Stories. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.
