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RE: Contest - Story9: "My Student Life" / "Mein Leben als Schüler / Student"
I believe that if you grow up under a cheese bell full of mistrust and are indoctrinated to the hilt - and then experience how this whole construct collapses.... You have nothing left at the end that you can call your basis or roots.
At the time, I had no idea that GDR citizens could not travel as easily as I could. That they couldn't buy bananas or oranges at any time - like I could. Or that there was forced participation in elections, prisons for children or involuntary adoptions...
We are all not old enough to have become "perpetrators" ourselves to a considerable extent. But we were downright criminally clueless.
Ah, I understand. You’ve seen a view of the world which is so different to almost everybody else. In one sense, I’m surprised that it didn’t bring you closer together and I hesitate to use the word “ashamed” as the reason it’s not spoken about.
Do you wonder what life would have been for you had the wall not come down?
No.
I once wrote elsewhere that I was forced into army service and screwed up one thing after another until they threw me out. It wasn't possible to resign so easily.
After that I was "burnt" for the GDR - I wouldn't have found work because they didn't hire anyone who had been dishonourably discharged. After the " turnaround" I was just as unacceptable. Precisely BECAUSE I had the army background.
I wouldn't have got along in one system and I had just as much trouble in the other one.