Today's 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall takes me right back. Here's an excerpt of my upcoming book I once had a Farm in Ireland.
"The political situation in Germany that had influenced our
decision to buy an escape place in Ireland had changed. The historical landmark
for that was the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989.
Ask
any American where they were on 9/11, and they will know. For a German, the
equivalent date is 11/9, the day the Berlin Wall opened in 1989.
On
that historic day, I was away from Germany on a two-week golfing vacation by
myself in Tunisia. During the preceding months of world-changing events in
Eastern Europe, I had been elsewhere mentally because of the drama going on in
my own little world.
Mac fixed a date for our emigration. It was
his decision. I only reluctantly supported the idea and still went to therapy
to get used to this change in our lifestyle. I needed a break.
Mac
and his mother stayed back in Germany to mind our children, then two and five
years old, so that I could have a holiday, recharge my batteries and come to
terms with our future.
The
resort of Port El Kantoui provided enough distraction: sun, beach, food, and
golf. In those pre-Internet days, my hotel didn’t have a TV in the room. What I
heard on the news in the noisy lounge bar was unfathomable: Hungarian and
Czechoslovakian borders had opened to let Eastern Germans leave their country.
Calling my husband back in the Fatherland, I found him equally puzzled. We both
watched developments anxiously. Our firm belief was that Mrs. Thatcher would
rather give up Northern Ireland and let it reunite with Ireland than the
Soviets would tolerate this insurrection. They had intervened before in Prague
in 1968 and suppressed Hungarian liberation attempts in 1956.
Living
in Germany during the armament race and the Cold War in the 1980s had always felt
like living on a powder keg. This situation in 1990 had all the hallmarks of
escalation. One evening, I was so troubled by the developing news in eastern
Europe that I suggested to come home earlier to have the family back together.
“Let’s
watch on TV if there are Russian troop movements, you from Tunisia, and we from
here,” Mac said. “If the Soviets are sending tanks westward, don’t bother to
come back to Germany — then it will be time to reconvene in Ireland. The
Americans won’t just stand by and watch. There’ll be war.”