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National Geographic : 1962 Jul
Contents
BERLIN WHERE CRISIS succeeds crisis with almost the reg ularity of the seasons, seemed to sprawl in all directions as our plane circled to land. On one side a brilliant net of neon spread outward from Kurfiirstendamm, its glow flung high into the black sky. Streams of traf fic coursed along the arc-lit autobahns. On the other side the glare was cut off as if by a drawn blind. Beyond lay a sea of darkness sparsely strewn with street lamps. The plane's landing lights briefly picked a shattered wall out of the gloom. Our students, faces pressed against the plane windows, were meeting the fundamen tal fact of Berlin: It is a divided city.* For the first time since India, we became totally engrossed in the momentous questions of the present and the future. At the Albert Einstein School in West Ber lin, Mary Wohlford and I talked with a tall, *See "Life in Walled-off West Berlin," by Nathaniel T. Kenney and Volkmar Wentzel, NATIONAL GEO GRAPHIC, December, 1961. Second-century splendors of Rome appear in miniature in the city's Museum of the Civiliza tion of Rome. Giant horseshoe of the Forum lies to the right of the ring-shaped Colosseum. Tub like Stadium of Domitian dominates the fore ground. Guide, who seems to wade the Tiber Riv er, faces the Circus Maximus. intense boy named Helmut, who had fled East Germany several years earlier. Quietly he explained that he had escaped because "they would have made me do things against my beliefs." "What do you mean?" I asked. "Well, I wanted to go to a university. I knew I couldn't get in without joining the state run Freie Deutsche Jugend (Free German Youth); my loyalty would be questioned, you know. Anyway, I wouldn't do it." "Why not?" Mary asked. "It tries to turn young people into party workers. If you join you have to take part in their 'spontaneous' demonstrations. You may even be sent to West Berlin for espionage." We visited East Berlin (before the wall was built), and I saw thousands of people attend ing a government official's funeral. A popular man, I thought; then a West Berlin bystander showed me something I had overlooked armed guards on the crowd's fringes to make sure nobody left. Enjoying West Berlin's cultural riches, we HS EKTACHROMESC) NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICSUCIEIY Clasped hands bespeak friendship in the West Berlin home of Dr. Gerhard Liitgert, where plaid- shirted Mike Andes stayed two weeks. He later wrote to the family, "After living with you in your divided city, I understand much better the mean ing of peace, freedom, and democracy." 119
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