34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting Account of an East German Childhood, March 11, 2005
Jana Hensel was born in 1976 in what was then the German Democratic Republic. Her childhood was filled with Young Pioneer meetings, clubs, school, recycling, swearing allegiance to world socialism and summer camp. But there was a dark side to all this. As Hensel writes, " . . . to avoid being denounced to the secret police, you also had to watch what you said to whom. You had to really trust your friends." Hensel's parents protected her from the government man who came around offering sports scholarships to girls who wound up with "man sized shoulders and physiques." There was a constant hunt for stylish clothes, Western food, and appropriate Christmas gifts.
In 1990, a year after the fall of the Wall, the GDR came to an end. Hensel would spend her high school years in the same place, but in a different country. Her generation was able to adjust by learning West German slang, figuring out which clothes to wear, and understanding that the television shows and other artifacts of her childhood were gone. Hensel's parents' generation, however, did not adjust as well. They weren't just losing comic books, they were losing their jobs: the new owners of former-GDR factories shut them down and many teachers and other civil servants were forced out. These middle-aged people who had spent their lives under socialism could not easily adjust to the change to a market economy.
Hensel's experience is similar to those of immigrants to a different country, where the children adapt to the new culture more easily and wind up interpreting it for their parents. And, like some immigrants, Hensel's generation of GDR children wound up both more confident than their parents ("We felt like monarchs, founding a new kingdom on the ruins of the old") and protective of them. The rub is that these "immigrant" parents are German, speak German fluently, and haven't moved an inch.
This is the third personal memoir of life inside the GDR that I've read, and the only one to describe a childhood in East Germany from 1976 until the fall of the Wall. Hensel has no axe to grind, and no need to justify the GDR or its policies. She was not a communist. She did not voluntarily emmigrate to the GDR -- she was born there. The book is thus neither "Ostalgie" (nostalgia for the East) nor specifically anti-GDR. It is just an accurate and interesting description of life before and after the wall.
I have not been able to find a memoir of life in the GDR written by someone in Hensel's parents' generation (probably born in the late 1940s or early 1950s.) It would be interesting to read the story told from the perspective of one who was born in the GDR and lived in it through middle age. However, I can recommend other memoirs of life in East Germany: "Twelve Years" by Joel Agee, who lived as a child in East Germany from 1948 to 1960; and "Crossing the River," by Victor Grossman, an American Communist who, as a soldier stationed in West Germany, fled to the GDR in 1952 and still lives in eastern Berlin.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A nice read about life in East Germany., August 8, 2006
Whereas one of the previous reviewers may not have "gotten" this book, I did. I visited East Germany right after the fall of the wall, and then five years later. What a change there was. Not only could you tell the difference on the outside, but the people changed too. Hensel writes about these changes and how it affected her. Then she relates how it affected the older generations. Hensel is a little flip, but maybe she has a right to be. There were big changes, and the young adapt to change. Older people do not. This is a story about one young lady changing to the new landscape. East Germany no longer exists physically, but does emotionally in millions of Germans.
This is a nice read for those interested in Germany. I found myself laughing at some of Hensel comments. I can relate how she experienced life.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Recent return from the former GDR, August 15, 2007
I recently spent 2 1/2 months in the former GDR working at a university. My trip was a great experience and I was really struck by the historical remnants and stories of those that had grown up and moved into the former GDR after the fall of the wall. When the wall fell I was only 9 years old and many of my friends there were in my age range and we had few memories of this time. Jana Hensel's book provided me with an in-depth understanding of what life was like for my friends and their siblings during the reunification. It was interesting to hear stories of her childhood that were similar to my friend's stories.
"After the Wall" was fabulous and a must-read for those interested in the real-life of former East Germans.
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