Margit Hosseini lived in West Berlin when the Wall was built. She was interviewed for COLD WAR in September 1996.

On differences between East and West Berlin:

It was a different atmosphere; it looked optically quite different. Even as a child I noticed that when you came across Friedrichstrasse [into East Berlin], there were big kind of posters advertising socialism and the greatness of it. As you entered more into East Berlin, away from the center ... it got duller; there were less colorful posters and more gray. A more subdued kind of picture. In general, I remember ... it smelled different coming from West Berlin, entering East Berlin. And for many years I was thinking, "Why is there a different smell?" And it came of course from the coal: they burnt different coals. It was a sort of ... well, we called it "the Eastern smell."

I think the sort of grayishness was not just optical. In a sense ... it was also the people. In some ways I always felt, as a little girl, they were much more subdued [in the East]. I don't know whether that was because of the kind of propaganda we had in the West, of course, or whether it was a real fact. I do remember the endless gray shuffling of people along the street, not talking a lot to each other. You know, when you saw a group of people in the West, they were talking and laughing or making gestures, and I remember that wasn't like that [in the East]. ...

I think basically [the difference between East and West] showed in clothes. You know, when we went across, we always had bags; like every family from the West, we always took lots of things: you took fresh fruit -- oranges were unobtainable in East Berlin -- clothes, nicer clothes, sort of soap and things. So you were always loaded when you went across. And in those days, you have to remember, there was no Wall, so you didn't have your bags checked. I mean, sometimes you could cross anywhere where the street went across the border; sometimes you were stopped and checked. In the S-Bahn they quite often did sort of random checks.

And I remember once, my cousin actually came with her mother to stay with us the weekend, and when they arrived both of them were in tears because they had gotten oranges from some relation, and they actually brought the oranges to us as a gift -- which was a very precious gift for them. [But] they had run into a random check and the oranges were taken away from them, because that was a sort of Western influence which the authorities in the East didn't want. And it seemed to me so utterly absurd to make a political issue out of oranges -- and I can't have been more than 11 at the time -- I just thought, "This is totally ridiculous."

On learning that the border had been closed:

My first feeling was a personal one, because my sister that summer had stayed with my aunt just outside of East Berlin ... My father actually woke me up and said, "You know, they closed the border," and I didn't understand what he was saying. It was incomprehensible, you know; it was so strange. And then my mother came in crying, and my older sister, and we were thinking, you know, "How do we get my sister back?" Telephone links were cut; you couldn't phone. So in the end I think my father went to the police station, and the police phoned around and then they told my parents to go to Friedrichstrasse and try to sort this out. So we all took the S-Bahn, and it was an absolute chaos in Friedrichstrasse, it was terrible: people crying, shouting; some were frightened, some were angry, some wanted to go from East to West, some from West to East. Some looked for their relations, like we did.

It was utter chaos. And I just remember I'm so frightened -- I thought, "We'll never see my sister, she's lost," so to speak. And it took quite a long time until my father somehow found somebody to talk to, some official, and we discovered that my aunt actually was also in Friedrichstrasse with my sister, trying [to do] exactly the same [thing] from her side. And in the end, after a huge sort of paperwork, and my father, who had a very short temper, starting to have a rather sort of shorter temper, as usual, and my mother worrying that he would lose his temper and then my sister would not be allowed to leave ... in the end we did manage to get my sister back.

On the mood in West Berlin after the Wall was built:

I think it was probably the reaction [of], "What is going to happen [now]?" [Or] in a wider political sense, "What will the Russians do, what will America do?" ...

I remember when there was very little reaction coming [at] first from America -- Kennedy being on holiday and not reacting -- there was anger. We all felt, "They are dropping us like a hotcake." You know: "They don't care about us, they don't do anything." All this sort of talk about West Berlin, the sort of "front-line island," was just a propaganda thing and now they are turning away because it's too risky to do something. And I think that also explains then the totally different reaction when Kennedy actually came, quite a bit later, to Berlin: that people were absolutely jubilant.

But these first few days, I think the town was rather subdued. We were so scared. And I think generally, people thought, "That's it," you know, "we will now be part of the GDR and [have] lost our sort of freedom." I talked later, many years later, to my cousin, and she explained to me the Eastern side: they were angry; they were just very, very angry. She said she thought it was disgusting, a state who locks in its population. ... And she said she, at the time, decided, and said to her family, "I will manage to go across." And the family of course convinced her that that isn't very easy; and as time passed, it got more and more difficult anyway. But she said there was an enormous amount of anger. You felt that Big Brother was treating you, everyone, like a child, telling you: "This is good for you, because I know better." And there was anger. And that was different from the West: in the West there was fear, you know, the feeling of helplessness. ...

On President Kennedy's visit to Berlin:

Oh, it was terribly exciting, really exciting. Even if you were totally unpolitical, it was really exciting. ... It reminded me of what I thought when my grandmother was telling me about the Emperor's birthday: little girls waving flags, and everybody was in such a good mood. All the shops closed. ... It was a bit like New Year's Eve in Germany ... it was that kind of atmosphere. Everybody was really sort of delighted. ...

I did think it was a bit silly, his sentence, "Ich bin ein Berliner," because it was with such a strong American accent. And then, of course, in West Germany, "Berliner" means a pancake ... so I thought that was rather silly (laughs). But, you know, one sort of respected his effort he made. ...

Everybody was delighted, and everybody was very, very grateful. It was that feeling of, "Ah, now we are sure, now we are safe." ... And well, as I was sort of a young girl then, I thought, "He looks madly handsome." I think we all realized it was an historical moment.

On the Wall:

To me, it personified the absurdity of political life. I probably am one of the few in my circle of friends who firmly believed that this division is not forever. I did not think that it would happen in my lifetime -- that it would sort of dissolve, so to speak -- but I thought it was so absurd and so unrealistic that it could not survive for long. And, because I like history, to me 50 years in history is not a long time. It's a long time for a person, but not in historical terms.

I felt it was unjust, but so unjust that it's absurd. You cannot lock a whole nation in; you cannot, against the will of a large population, rule. Only to an extent, and only to a time. There will be one time when it will crumble. Whatever, however you suppress and however you lock people in, however you make them dependent on you as an authority, you can only do it, I am personally convinced, only for a certain time. There will be an outbreak. You can't for long ... this is not possible. ...

I was staying with friends near [the Wall], and we heard that something was happening. We sort of went out to look, and [saw a wounded man] ... lying there in what we called "no man's land." And as the hours went on, it was a very strange atmosphere: the Americans gathered, the soldiers gathered on one side, not doing anything; and on the other side the GDR ... the police there were standing on their side, not doing anything. And this young man was huddled -- I remember he was lying like an "S" shape -- and first he screamed, he cried, he shouted for help. And as the hours went on, his voice got weaker and weaker, until he stopped.

It was -- I don't know -- in a way, as an individual, I felt it was so heart-rending that in the middle of nowhere was a human being dying, and two groups were facing each other, too worried to act, because they didn't know what the other one was going to do. ... Politically, I thought it makes you aware how difficult it is to act in a political situation. If you over-act, it might be wrong; if you do nothing, it might be wrong. And this poor young man just was lying there between two powers, paying for their not knowing what to do with his life. Because probably, if one of them would have pulled him over, he probably would have survived. As far as I remember, I think he was just bleeding to death. You felt anger and sadness at the same time. And at the time, I think my sadness for him was stronger than my anger. ...

I was just -- I was crying. It was -- it was really horrible. You were just standing there and you thought, "He's just dying," and you can't do anything. I mean, I've never been in that situation before [or since], where you actually see a person dying and you can't do anything. And I am sure everyone else around me felt the same. You know, people are not [so] cold-blooded [as] to brush this off. I am sure the soldiers felt the same, on both sides. It's shameful. You feel you are not doing anything. It's so ... you feel shame, endless shame. But on the other hand, rationally you know that you can't do anything, but your emotions tell you you should. ... I mean, I couldn't have rushed forward, and I don't think it ever occurred to me, rushing forward, because it wouldn't have made the slightest difference. But this feeling of total passiveness -- that was dreadful, and I've never ever forgotten it; that you see something really horrible, really awful, and somebody needs bitterly your help, and you don't act, you just stay there and wait. And I've kept that shame.