From Caracas to Berlin (1969)
The Trip
In 1967, my father received an offer to work as a journalist for some newspapers and magazines in Paris. When we were ready for the trip (even my brother and I were retired from the school), we had a family problem and the trip was postponed. Two years later, in 1969, work was again offered to my father, but to a different destination, it would now be Berlin, East Germany (GDR). The trip was confirmed for Tuesday, May 13, 1969. We first arrived in Paris, where we stayed for a week, and then we went to London for another month (in some friends house) while my father traveled to Berlin to prepare our arrive, our new home and of course a school for us.
The arrival
We arrived at the Schönefeld airport with the German airline Interflug. Once there we traveled a long way on a highway. I can describe our emotion while contemplate the extensive flat landscapes that surrounded us until arriving at the city. After that long journey we arrive at our destination: Berlin!
At that moment the only things I knew about Germany were "The Condemnation of Lucullus" (Die Verurteilung des Lukullus) and "The Threepenny Opera" (Die Dreigroschenoper), both operas written by Bertolt Brecht and with music by Paul Dessau and Kurt Weil respectively.
Schönefeld Airport, Berlin (Circa 1969) - Source
The first contact
Berlin CathedralLike most European cities, Berlin looked like a grayish city, perhaps because of the age of the city, the large number of buildings or maybe because of the light and the weather. On that long way to our home, we saw many big, historic, old and amazing buildings; also, we noted many constructions everywhere. But the most impressive thing was the amount of ruins product of the war. We were speechless thinking that all that ruins were in fact buildings where people, like us, lived in. Coming from Venezuela as children, we had not much knowledge about the horror of the war. Even 24 years later we could feel that terror, and around us we found vestiges of it, everywhere. That deeply impacted us, because until then we never imagined to live in a place with a recent war like that.
The curiosity
Berlin Downtown being reconstructedWe arrived in summer, which allowed us to walk and get to know the city. The center of Berlin (which was only a couple of blocks from our house) was in reconstruction, in fact, both the square, The Neptune Fountain (Das Neptunbrunnen) and the beautiful Television Tower (Das Fernsehturm) were inaugurated the same year in October, while the Alexanderplatz, which was reopened a few years earlier, still had details under construction. The Centrum Warehouses (Centrum Warenhaus), which were located in the same square, also opened their doors that year, while the construction of the Stadt Berlin Hotel (today Park Inn Berlin) was inaugurated in 1970. This did not happen only at downtown, the tall iron cranes in full action were visible all over the city.
It was awesome to see how a country that was left in ruins after a World War, just 24 years later it was already standing, upright. The city was growing so fast, and it felt like if it were renewing day by day. For those dates the XX Anniversary of East Germany (XX Jahrestag der DDR) was approaching, and everywhere there were preparations for this great celebration, which would be on October 7, 1969.
The World Clock (Das Weltzeituhr) in Alexanderplatz - Source
We were lucky to have the chance to visit too many tourist places, parks, squares, nearby towns, cinemas, and ice cream shops before classes and winter began. Little by little we were feeling with increasing force the emotion of rationalizing that we would live in that great city.
Me walking on the outskirts of Berlin (Family Picture)
Adaptation
After a few months we started the school and we met our teacher Frau Kleinert. She was at the same time a nice and stiff lady, but she put all her efforts to help my brother and me to learn German quickly, a goal that she happily achieved, since my brother and I mastered the language so fast. It was very important to have had only German schoolmates, since that forced us to be in contact with the language on a daily basis.
The school level was much higher, and we had a lot of subjects that we did not learn in Venezuela. Little by little we were catching up.
With the arrival of autumn, the cold began, which meant for us one of the most difficult changes to adapt to, since we came from the tropic and we did not know the cold that is experienced in countries with different seasons.
When you really want to feel good, at ease in a place different of your native country, you just have to integrate and enjoy that new way of life.
We adapt immediately to food, education, tastes, fun, rules, weather, etc.
My brother and I were in different musical and sports activities and due to the great citizen security, we could walk and mobilize wherever we wanted at any time, which we could not do in Caracas with such freedom.
That same year I met Roland, who was our neighbor and soon became my first boyfriend. With him we walked a lot, and we met places that were not properly tourist. One of them, which became one of our favorites was the Cafe of the Opera (Operncafé), where we loved to go dancing. Definitely his company was very pleasant and fun.
Roland and me
TramsOf all the conveyances that existed, the ones I enjoyed the most were the Tramway (Straßenbahn), since it looked like something from a film (which was the transport I used almost daily), and trains, in which I traveled to other cities.
There were also Trolleybus or Trolley (which is kind of electric bus), the U-Bahn (underground train or Metro) and the S-Bahn (urban train).
Winter, snow
The first snow fell and the emotion filled us, it was like a dream (I guess that's the same feeling everyone have knowing the snow). That day dawned with everything white out of our windows. We didn't know it yet, but with the snow came the fun, the snowmen and the skating rinks. As the days passed, and the temperature continued to drop, we began to visit nearby forests to ride on sledges.
However, for our Caribbean family, the temperature of - 20º C was almost inhuman, we even thought that at any moment we would become ice blocks. I think Germany wanted us to never forget our first winter there, since that year the temperature dropped to -32º C, which led to the suspension of classes and other work activities. That year was so cold that it was registered as one of the coldest winters in the country, matched, years later, by the winter of 2010.
First snow in front of our window (Photo by Hely Orsini)
Activities
During our stay in East Germany, which lasted a little over 4 years, I had the chance to see a lot of plays in great and important theaters at that time, like the Berliner Ensemble, Kamerspiele, Maxim Gorki, and the Metropol. There were also many European film festivals, to which I always tried to go with my dear friend Irene.
In Berlin I started singing, art that becoming my career and life.
In 1970 I was invited to join the "Ensemble Solidarität", based in Leipzig, which brought together more than a hundred of students from different parts of the world. There, each of the 13 groups that made up the Ensemble sang and danced songs from their respective countries, even with their traditional clothes. With this group we participated in many Festivals nationwide, which allowed us to meet many German towns and cities, as well as to live with wonderful people from other countries, and learn about their cultures, during each tour.
Cover of the Ensemble's magazine where I appear surrounded by companions of Cyprus, Lebanon and Somalia (this photo was used in some of my social networks, with rights of use by the Ensemble)
Home
Much of our stay in that country passed between Berlin and Leipzig, but since that time I've always felt Berlin as my home, that home you miss and remember with nostalgia and immense affection.
Our first house, in Köpenickerstraße. (Photo by Hely Orsini)
Our second home, in Alexanderstrasse - Source
The farewell
In 1973, my father was transferred again, this time to Moscow. We had then the moment of our farewell. We packed everything for our move, and finally left Berlin, from the train station Ostbahnhof to the USSR. During almost the entire trip, in our cabin, there was a silence full of sadness, where the tears did not stop wetting our cheeks. My dad, mom, brother and I hardly saw each other's faces. Nobody felt like talking. We left our house.
Towards the end of the 30 hours that this trip lasted, we began to recover, and the sadness gradually changed to the anxiety and expectation for our new destination: Moscow.
Ostbahnhof train station - Source
Berlin today
From that Berlin that I met that was raised in a few years from the ashes, from that Berlin loaded with so much history and culture, from that Berlin where we learned what Solidarity is, from that planned and organized Berlin that welcomed us with open arms and that allowed us to love it, there is a beautiful and endearing memory.
Present images of Berlin - Sources 1, 2, 3, 4
Soon will be 5 decades since our arrival in that country. Today is a completely different country, but I am sure that in many corners of its old walls still remains the smell of that Berlin, of that East Germany, the one that survived and was reborn, and that today, at the beginning of the 21st century, is a whole Great Nation: Germany / Deutschland.
Berlin sunset - Souce
Reflection
Despite having lived in Berlin for only 4 years (from 69 to 73), for me it has always meant so much, that since then I have felt as if I had lived there a lot longer, maybe because all the experiences that marked what I am today.
I took this picture in The Brandenburger Gate (Das Brandenburger Tor) in 1970, many years before the fall of the Wall, and I want to use it to say goodbye in this post. I hope you enjoyed it at least a little bit, for my part I can confess that I enjoyed writing and reliving beautiful and happy moments.
Hely Orsini
Source of Berlin Cathedral Photo
Source of Berlin being reconstructed Photo
Source of Trolley Photo
Some of the pictures were color and crop edited by me for aesthetics purposes.
PS: I have only few original images of our stay in Germany, because in on our return to Venezuela all our luggage was lost and sadly all the photographs we had taken.
The arrival
We arrived at the Schönefeld airport with the German airline Interflug. Once there we traveled a long way on a highway. I can describe our emotion while contemplate the extensive flat landscapes that surrounded us until arriving at the city. After that long journey we arrive at our destination: Berlin!
At that moment the only things I knew about Germany were "The Condemnation of Lucullus" (Die Verurteilung des Lukullus) and "The Threepenny Opera" (Die Dreigroschenoper), both operas written by Bertolt Brecht and with music by Paul Dessau and Kurt Weil respectively.
The first contact
Berlin Cathedral
Like most European cities, Berlin looked like a grayish city, perhaps because of the age of the city, the large number of buildings or maybe because of the light and the weather. On that long way to our home, we saw many big, historic, old and amazing buildings; also, we noted many constructions everywhere. But the most impressive thing was the amount of ruins product of the war. We were speechless thinking that all that ruins were in fact buildings where people, like us, lived in. Coming from Venezuela as children, we had not much knowledge about the horror of the war. Even 24 years later we could feel that terror, and around us we found vestiges of it, everywhere. That deeply impacted us, because until then we never imagined to live in a place with a recent war like that.
The curiosity
Berlin Downtown being reconstructed
We arrived in summer, which allowed us to walk and get to know the city. The center of Berlin (which was only a couple of blocks from our house) was in reconstruction, in fact, both the square, The Neptune Fountain (Das Neptunbrunnen) and the beautiful Television Tower (Das Fernsehturm) were inaugurated the same year in October, while the Alexanderplatz, which was reopened a few years earlier, still had details under construction. The Centrum Warehouses (Centrum Warenhaus), which were located in the same square, also opened their doors that year, while the construction of the Stadt Berlin Hotel (today Park Inn Berlin) was inaugurated in 1970. This did not happen only at downtown, the tall iron cranes in full action were visible all over the city.
It was awesome to see how a country that was left in ruins after a World War, just 24 years later it was already standing, upright. The city was growing so fast, and it felt like if it were renewing day by day. For those dates the XX Anniversary of East Germany (XX Jahrestag der DDR) was approaching, and everywhere there were preparations for this great celebration, which would be on October 7, 1969.
We were lucky to have the chance to visit too many tourist places, parks, squares, nearby towns, cinemas, and ice cream shops before classes and winter began. Little by little we were feeling with increasing force the emotion of rationalizing that we would live in that great city.
Adaptation
After a few months we started the school and we met our teacher Frau Kleinert. She was at the same time a nice and stiff lady, but she put all her efforts to help my brother and me to learn German quickly, a goal that she happily achieved, since my brother and I mastered the language so fast. It was very important to have had only German schoolmates, since that forced us to be in contact with the language on a daily basis.
The school level was much higher, and we had a lot of subjects that we did not learn in Venezuela. Little by little we were catching up.
With the arrival of autumn, the cold began, which meant for us one of the most difficult changes to adapt to, since we came from the tropic and we did not know the cold that is experienced in countries with different seasons.
When you really want to feel good, at ease in a place different of your native country, you just have to integrate and enjoy that new way of life.
We adapt immediately to food, education, tastes, fun, rules, weather, etc.
My brother and I were in different musical and sports activities and due to the great citizen security, we could walk and mobilize wherever we wanted at any time, which we could not do in Caracas with such freedom.
That same year I met Roland, who was our neighbor and soon became my first boyfriend. With him we walked a lot, and we met places that were not properly tourist. One of them, which became one of our favorites was the Cafe of the Opera (Operncafé), where we loved to go dancing. Definitely his company was very pleasant and fun.
Trams
Of all the conveyances that existed, the ones I enjoyed the most were the Tramway (Straßenbahn), since it looked like something from a film (which was the transport I used almost daily), and trains, in which I traveled to other cities.
There were also Trolleybus or Trolley (which is kind of electric bus), the U-Bahn (underground train or Metro) and the S-Bahn (urban train).
Winter, snow
The first snow fell and the emotion filled us, it was like a dream (I guess that's the same feeling everyone have knowing the snow). That day dawned with everything white out of our windows. We didn't know it yet, but with the snow came the fun, the snowmen and the skating rinks. As the days passed, and the temperature continued to drop, we began to visit nearby forests to ride on sledges.
However, for our Caribbean family, the temperature of - 20º C was almost inhuman, we even thought that at any moment we would become ice blocks. I think Germany wanted us to never forget our first winter there, since that year the temperature dropped to -32º C, which led to the suspension of classes and other work activities. That year was so cold that it was registered as one of the coldest winters in the country, matched, years later, by the winter of 2010.
Activities
During our stay in East Germany, which lasted a little over 4 years, I had the chance to see a lot of plays in great and important theaters at that time, like the Berliner Ensemble, Kamerspiele, Maxim Gorki, and the Metropol. There were also many European film festivals, to which I always tried to go with my dear friend Irene.
In Berlin I started singing, art that becoming my career and life.
In 1970 I was invited to join the "Ensemble Solidarität", based in Leipzig, which brought together more than a hundred of students from different parts of the world. There, each of the 13 groups that made up the Ensemble sang and danced songs from their respective countries, even with their traditional clothes. With this group we participated in many Festivals nationwide, which allowed us to meet many German towns and cities, as well as to live with wonderful people from other countries, and learn about their cultures, during each tour.
Home
Much of our stay in that country passed between Berlin and Leipzig, but since that time I've always felt Berlin as my home, that home you miss and remember with nostalgia and immense affection.
The farewell
In 1973, my father was transferred again, this time to Moscow. We had then the moment of our farewell. We packed everything for our move, and finally left Berlin, from the train station Ostbahnhof to the USSR. During almost the entire trip, in our cabin, there was a silence full of sadness, where the tears did not stop wetting our cheeks. My dad, mom, brother and I hardly saw each other's faces. Nobody felt like talking. We left our house.
Towards the end of the 30 hours that this trip lasted, we began to recover, and the sadness gradually changed to the anxiety and expectation for our new destination: Moscow.
Berlin today
From that Berlin that I met that was raised in a few years from the ashes, from that Berlin loaded with so much history and culture, from that Berlin where we learned what Solidarity is, from that planned and organized Berlin that welcomed us with open arms and that allowed us to love it, there is a beautiful and endearing memory.
Soon will be 5 decades since our arrival in that country. Today is a completely different country, but I am sure that in many corners of its old walls still remains the smell of that Berlin, of that East Germany, the one that survived and was reborn, and that today, at the beginning of the 21st century, is a whole Great Nation: Germany / Deutschland.
Reflection
Despite having lived in Berlin for only 4 years (from 69 to 73), for me it has always meant so much, that since then I have felt as if I had lived there a lot longer, maybe because all the experiences that marked what I am today.
I took this picture in The Brandenburger Gate (Das Brandenburger Tor) in 1970, many years before the fall of the Wall, and I want to use it to say goodbye in this post. I hope you enjoyed it at least a little bit, for my part I can confess that I enjoyed writing and reliving beautiful and happy moments.
Source of Berlin Cathedral Photo
Source of Berlin being reconstructed Photo
Source of Trolley Photo
Some of the pictures were color and crop edited by me for aesthetics purposes.
PS: I have only few original images of our stay in Germany, because in on our return to Venezuela all our luggage was lost and sadly all the photographs we had taken.