WEBVTT 00:00:05.219 --> 00:00:19.839 align:middle line:84% Let's start with this, how did you experience the democratic change in 1989. The breakdown of the wall 00:00:19.839 --> 00:00:27.920 align:middle line:84% Unfortunately not live. I was far away in Mexico. That made me sad because I grew up with the wall and when it fell, I was very far away. 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:43.259 align:middle line:84% I hung on the television and had tears in my eyes. I thought I should be there now, when I saw the people up there on the wall. Then of course I was very euphoric like all of us. 00:00:43.259 --> 00:00:54.219 align:middle line:84% I was working at a German school in Mexico back then and nothing happened that day. Since we were all stunned out of sheer incomprehensibility. 00:00:54.219 --> 00:01:07.939 align:middle line:84% I came to Germany only a year later, when the border was open. I think at that point the big euphoria was already gone. 00:01:07.939 --> 00:01:22.859 align:middle line:84% Yes, it was all quite quickly - the euphoria was there, you experienced it from afar. But you experienced the wall for many years from a Berliner's point of view. 00:01:22.859 --> 00:01:27.459 align:middle line:84% What kind of things did you experience in regards to the wall? 00:01:27.459 --> 00:01:45.560 align:middle line:84% I was seven years old when the wall was built. However, as a child I was rather oblivious to there being a GDR, a West Berlin; but I knew from my mother that I was born in East Berlin. 00:01:45.560 --> 00:01:53.799 align:middle line:84% I was born in Kaulsdorf a district of Berlin Lichtenberg in 1954 00:01:53.799 --> 00:02:04.180 align:middle line:84% Two years after my birth she as well as many others fled to the West. Since I was two years old I wasn’t aware of this. 00:02:04.180 --> 00:02:07.159 align:middle line:84% To the West of Berlin? 00:02:07.159 --> 00:02:19.120 align:middle line:84% Yes, there we had acquaintances and relatives. My mother was regarded as refugee and had to go through a transit home. 00:02:19.120 --> 00:02:33.960 align:middle line:84% And we had lived in Kaulsdorf, where my mother had worked as a nurse, with very nice friends where we could live in subtenancy. They were Uncle and Aunt Fischer to me. 00:02:33.960 --> 00:02:45.580 align:middle line:84% I visited them a lot. My mother was a republic refugee and I wanted so much to visit Uncle and Aunt Fischer, because they had such a nice garden. 00:02:45.580 --> 00:02:53.280 align:middle line:84% After all, I was a child of a republic refugee and was therefore always disguised as a boy named Hänschen. 00:02:53.280 --> 00:03:08.740 align:middle line:84% I always liked going in leather pants anyway. The neighbors my mother knew did not think much of it. I spent a lot of time in the garden. 00:03:08.740 --> 00:03:21.939 align:middle line:84% During the summer holidays in 1961, my first summer vacation - I was seven years old - I was supposed to spend the summer holidays in the garden with Uncle and Aunt Fischer. 00:03:21.939 --> 00:03:45.659 align:middle line:84% It was done that way - I was there for a few days. On the said 13th of August, my uncle Fischer was very excited listening to the radio and said something is happening with the border and there is a wall being built. 00:03:45.659 --> 00:03:54.819 align:middle line:84% And they told me we have to provide a permit when the vacation is over 00:03:54.819 --> 00:04:11.280 align:middle line:90% Then I went back to the garden. At around noon, suddenly our neighbors from West Berlin Lankwitz were we also lived, stood in the garden with one of her children. 00:04:11.280 --> 00:04:19.519 align:middle line:84% She said excitedly, Hannelore, we have to hurry, we have to go home. 00:04:19.519 --> 00:04:34.980 align:middle line:84% I was very angry, because I wanted to spend my holidays here. Then we quickly packed my bags - she took one of her children and me - and got into the train back home. 00:04:34.980 --> 00:04:45.920 align:middle line:84% She actually had two children and that's why she had her baby with her since at check-ups they were aware of that number. 00:04:45.920 --> 00:05:04.540 align:middle line:84% She also had to show her ID several times and sad these are my two kids, we are on the home. Then we were back in Lankwitz. 00:05:04.540 --> 00:05:22.040 align:middle line:84% My mother who had been waiting nervously took me in her arms. I have not understood this for years. To me there was just some wall far away. 00:05:22.040 --> 00:05:30.939 align:middle line:84% Every year on the 13th of August, I was expected to bring flowers to our neighbor, Ms. Dunker, and thank her for the rescue. 00:05:30.939 --> 00:05:45.360 align:middle line:84% I did not really understand the meaning until I studied history and also when I heard how many families had been torn apart. 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:52.120 align:middle line:84% I later asked my mother what she would have done if Ms. Dunker had not brought me. 00:05:52.120 --> 00:06:02.339 align:middle line:84% She said she would have brought me then, but we would have probably stayed in the East, or she would have been a Republic refugee. 00:06:02.339 --> 00:06:10.519 align:middle line:84% I do not think I would have grown up with my mother under such circumstances. 00:06:10.519 --> 00:06:24.699 align:middle line:84% Now the new federal states belong to Germany, and even if we look to the East, more countries in Europe have joined us. 00:06:24.699 --> 00:06:39.480 align:middle line:84% What hopes or expectations were there in your view, which ones were fulfilled and which were not? 00:06:39.480 --> 00:06:51.439 align:middle line:84% In any case, a huge relief was that the East-West conflict is no longer there. That was a great hope and still is. 00:06:51.439 --> 00:07:06.279 align:middle line:84% I think that Europe has developed well. Also with the other Eastern European countries that are there. 00:07:06.279 --> 00:07:24.079 align:middle line:84% Although I think it's a pity that they often isolate themselves, due to the tendencies that reject Europe, but overall the idea is great. 00:07:24.079 --> 00:07:36.040 align:middle line:84% I am also glad that there was a lot of participation in the European elections and that it did not get as bad as we feared with the right-wing populist parties - still bad enough 00:07:36.040 --> 00:07:41.360 align:middle line:84% and I am glad that young people are more interested in it. 00:07:41.360 --> 00:07:50.379 align:middle line:84% I also talk to the students about making it clear that we have peace for more than 70 years - because of Europe. 00:07:50.379 --> 00:08:06.839 align:middle line:84% Actually, I have high hopes that all other countries that are less European-friendly, such as Poland or Italy, will come to their senses. 00:08:06.839 --> 00:08:34.940 align:middle line:84% If you look at your students, a very young generation that is now dealing with Europe but mainly with climate change, which needs international solutions. 00:08:34.940 --> 00:08:43.360 align:middle line:84% How would you assess that, is Europe still divided among the current generation? 00:08:43.360 --> 00:08:58.600 align:middle line:84% No. So now referring to East and West? No, that's too far away - in 1989 - most students were not even born. 00:08:58.600 --> 00:09:14.779 align:middle line:84% They sometimes talk about their grandparents. Recently I had a mother of a student as a witness of the DDR in the classroom, who had lived until the age of 19 in the DDR. 00:09:14.779 --> 00:09:18.960 align:middle line:84% But the current generation is too far away. Just history. 00:09:18.960 --> 00:09:29.200 align:middle line:84% So can one hope that Europe will become even stronger through the new generation? 00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:43.919 align:middle line:84% I guess so. In my opinion, the new generation understood it better than the older ones, who once again wanted to have some nationalistic tendencies. That is a trend again. 00:09:43.919 --> 00:10:01.620 align:middle line:84% We observed in the European elections almost two weeks ago the voting behavior of the citizens in the east of Germany and in the west of Germany. 00:10:01.620 --> 00:10:22.539 align:middle line:84% The East, especially in the rural area, had many voters who supported populist movements and voted for the AFD and rejected the foreign. 00:10:22.539 --> 00:10:31.600 align:middle line:84% What would you say, especially in the East of Germany, why could it be that people think like that? 00:10:31.600 --> 00:10:46.639 align:middle line:84% A bit I can understand that, because it was a huge change for the people who lived in the GDR and suddenly didn’t count any longer. 00:10:46.639 --> 00:10:54.519 align:middle line:84% Especially for the elderly, who had no more momentum to leave the old. 00:10:54.519 --> 00:11:16.100 align:middle line:84% I'd say it's doubtful, no doubt, but it's deep-seated fears and this fear of strangers is because there was never any contact with strangers. 00:11:16.100 --> 00:11:28.379 align:middle line:84% What would you wish for the newly elected MEPs for the future of Europe, that this peace project be further stabilized and live on? 00:11:28.379 --> 00:11:43.879 align:middle line:84% I would like to have less distrust between the European states of Europe. How to solve this - that is a challenge for Europe. For sure, it is. 00:11:43.879 --> 00:11:48.879 align:middle line:84% The youth can be a great hope because they do not cling to the old structures and are more open to new things.