In One End

Today's anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall takes me back to 1957 when, with a school group, I visited Berlin. Part of the US-Soviet treaty dictated that an American Army bus be allowed into East Berlin daily for sightseeing. It was arranged for our group to be on that bus. The contrast between east and west was never more dramatic to me than it was that day, most evident in a boulevard lined with grim Soviet-style buildings, and immediately beyond them rubble, stretching as far as one could see. Heavy stuff for an 18-year old living through the middle of the Cold War.