Border Child: My Childhood Between East and West Berlin

“East or West?” the taxi driver asks in the course of our conversation while driving from Mitte to Kreuzberg. It goes without saying that I am also a Berliner by birth, like him. We talk about the resurrection of the Kurfürsten Damm and the crime on Kottbusser Tor, about the inadequate rents in the city center, and about those who have moved to Berlin, both new and old. “Uh, both,” I reply, biting my tongue at the same time. I realize what’s coming now. “Well, both doesn’t work” he corrects me, wise-assed. “Where did you go to school?” I could just lie and spare ourselves further questions. But we are right there, so I say: “In the West, but we lived in the East. That was before the fall of the Wall. “Now he is quite confused. I know the reaction. Anyone who grew up in Berlin in the 80s is either from the West or the East of Berlin. Only I can not answer this question clearly, because between 1986 and 1990 I lived in East Berlin, but went to school in West Berlin. I crossed the border daily in the Tränenpalast (Palace of Tears), as the commute to my school in West Berlin was called. I am neither Ossi nor Wessi, rather maybe Wossi: a child of both sides. I am familiar with the gray East with its bullet holes in the walls of the houses, the empty shelves in supermarkets, and the cozy East German atmosphere.

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by Suz | Nov 15, 2019 | Stories