Thirty-five years ago yesterday, March 17, 1985, I wished happy St Patrick’s Day to a GDR border control official at Berlin’s Friedrichstraße Railway Station.
I was scared he’d go through my bag more thoroughly than he did. I was carrying West German newspapers to an Anglican priest in Görlitz.
I successfully distracted him, talking about St Patrick and Marxism-Leninism in Ireland. Heavens, was I nervous. I also had some West German currency for the priest. Had I been caught it would have been jail and an issue for the West and East German Catholic Church. The East German authorities would have made a great story out of it – the dishonesty of a priest and interfering in the internal affairs of the German Democratic Republic.
I’ve been thinking of the fear and terror I experienced that day on this strange St Patrick’s Day. And then the freedom, exhilaration, victory too, standing later on the eastern side of Friedrichstraße Railway Station.
That place is a different world now. I’m wondering where that former GDR official is today. I trust/hope happy and well.
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