Pieces of the Past

We spent the afternoon at the Newseum, a favorite of the twins. The Newseum is an interactive museum of news and journalism and it has the largest display of sections of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany. These panels show the Western face of the Wall. Painting was not allowed because the complete Wall system was on the territory of East Berlin but many artists began to paint in defiance on the Western side of the Wall in the beginning of the 80s.

Seeing the wall reminded me of my trip to West Berlin in 1967 during the Cold War. Right after I graduated from high school, a friend and I took the overnight Duty Train from Frankfurt through East Germany to visit friends living in West Berlin.

The Berlin Duty Train started in 1945 as a method of transporting soldiers, their dependents, and U.S. Army civilians in and out of the Allied sectors of Berlin and West Germany. The Soviets allowed 16 to 19 trains a day to travel to West Berlin. The U.S. had a total of four passenger trains that traveled from Frankfurt and Bremerhaven to Berlin, and back.

"Each train consisted of three compartmentalized sleeping cars, an escort car and a mail and freight car and was assigned a train commander, a Russian-English interpreter, two Military Police, a radio operator, and a conductor. The trains traveled only at night, departing at 8:30 p.m. and arriving at their destination at 6:30 a.m. the following morning, allowing the passengers to sleep throughout the trip." The 115 mile train ride was typically nine hours, depending on the time to check passports and orders at the checkpoints and to change the engines. The Soviets only allowed East German engines, so there were two changes.

At checkpoints, we were advised to keep the window shades down and not make eye contact with the Soviets. I remember taking a peek out the window when we were stopped at the Potsdam checkpoint. I saw Soviet soldiers on the platform with their guns pointed at the train, and I was struck by the fact that they were not much older than I was.

Today, 47 years later, the girl with whom I traveled and the boy we visited in West Berlin are still my very dear friends. And I should probably mention that it was this particular "boy" who told me about Blipfoto when we had lunch back in February.