Customer Reviews

After the Wall: Confessions from an East German Childhood and the Life that Came Next

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This book is beautiful.

Having briefly visited East Berlin in 1959, I was impressed with its cleanliness and dullness in contrast to the chaos, colour, mess and joy of life in West Berlin. Hensel explains the difference with skill and personal example: East Germany, the most successful and prosperous of the Soviet satellites, was a collection of industrious, intelligent and obedient ants.

In many ways, her life until the collapse of "The Wall" was marvelous, packed with activities, programs, events and adults intended to uplift, enlighten and motivate youngsters to do good for others. The frightening aspect of her life was the unrelenting pressure to support these organizations to do good for others. East Germany was a cult without charisma, a ritual without religion in a minutely organized system designed to eliminate every element of chaos from the otherwise free human spirit.

She is acutely aware of her parents' and grandparents' generations who lived a rigidly controlled life for almost 60 years, during which even so much as smiling at the wrong event would bring suspicion and possible punishment. When very young, Hensel knew it was dangerous to pick up a discarded Western chocolate bar wrapper from the street; but, she also knew the pure joy of such rebellion. As a teen, she suddenly plunged into a free lifestyle in which almost everything was possible and nothing was unlikely.

This is a beautiful portrait of her astonishment at the democratic freedom -- much the same sense of astonishment I feel, having lived all my life in the luxury of such freedom -- the chaos and pure joy of "leaving people alone". In today's politics, too many talk about creating an inspiring sense of purpose for their country; Hensel deftly and with chilling starkness portrays the cost of such enforced "purpose", and the wondrous freedom and peace of mind that comes from respecting the rights of others.

The happiness of Americans is the ability to celebrate or condemn their consumer culture without restraint; this book is a warm, human and personal memoir of what it is to not have such freedom. This book is everything anyone could want in a good book; it's well written, concise, poignant and utterly relevant to American society and the world at large.

Thank you, Jana Hensel, for a marvelous explanation of what I saw in Berlin almost 50 years ago but didn't fully understand until now.

After the Wall depicts the real life impact of West German materialism on the people of the GDR. The younger generations adapted but as a consequence they lost their historical identities. The older generations of the GDR were simply overwhelmed. Although the intense focus on 'things' makes the reading a little repetitive and annoying at times, that just reinforces the fact that western/capitalist materialism is such a powerful force. This book offers unique insights into life in the GDR, capitalism, socialism, identity, and history. It's worth a read.

For those who visited East Berlin before and after the wall and who have German friends, this book provides a very interesting insight

Interesting expose on the 'sandwich' generation squeezed between two different worlds within the same country. Particularly poignant were the description of confused parents of these children and how they got lost within their erased history....a compelling read.

This memoir was on the bestseller list in Germany for over a year and sold a huge number of copies. Based on this information, I can't help thinking that much of what made this book such a bestseller in Germany was lost in translation. The English version is dull, repetitive, and written very simply as if a young girl was writing it, not a reporter looking back on her childhood. It is filled with many interesting tales I had never heard about East Germany but I would not recommend this particular memoir due to the sheer repetition and dullness of this translation.

After the Wall is an interesting account by a young woman who moved from being an East German to being a German, when the Wall came down. People forget that such political changes have effects on those who live through them.

This book sold well in its German original, but I'm not sure why. It meanders and never gets to the point. Perhaps the writer meant to be impressionistic, but doesn't have the skill to really pull that off. Perhaps it was too literally translated, but I don't think that was the real problem. The translator seems to do well enough with the material he was presented with, even providing some explanatory footnotes for historical terms and aspects of life in the former GDR. And his translator's essay at the end of the book is superior to Hensel's jottings. I doubt Hensel is the right person to provide an interesting reminiscense of growing up in East Germany, or life since then. My suspicion is that this is a book by the kind of individual who gets by regardless of the kind of country they find themselves living in. For a far more sympathetic and sensitive look at the same theme, try the film "Goodbye, Lenin". This book already has a huge number of used copies available, and there's a reason for that.