From Berlin with rocks

We went to Berlin as tourists, we came away educated about wars and its evil consequences. Wars can never be a solution for any conflicts or disagreements, no matter how grave the differences. We learnt about how separation could make one creative, and the price of freedom is so costly and dangerous, to the point of paying for it upfront with one's own life. But yet, freedom is worthy of the dangerous attempts.

I could not understand the full extent of the suffering caused by the Berlin Wall, but I could understand the consequences of  having be segregated from loved ones as a result of a war. I know that there must be great sufferings for the people to risk their all to come over to the other side. That much I know. They were really creative people in thinking out of the box how they could escape from the East to the West. Stories on the wall at Charlie Checkpoint were many and incredibly creative, some were totally unimaginable how they could come up with the idea and yet it worked ! Here are some that I could remember :-

1) One man got his girlfriend to come board the train and during ticket checking time, he hid her inside two suitcases which were joined through some carpentry works and she hid inside for about 3 hours.
2) One man made a model of cattle and hid inside the cattle's stomach as his friend drove him over as a piece of art display.
3) One family used hot-air balloon to fly across during night time to avoid being spotted and they failed at first attempt but they tried a second time.
4) Many hid inside unimaginable small spaces of cars, tractors, train and come through the other side.
5) One man swam across the ocean for hours in the dark and got saved by a ship.
6) Some men dug tunnels to allow people from the other to climb over.

The list went on and on. There was just so much hope in every one of the success story of escape, the great escape.

In the souvenir shops of Berlin, they sell the stones chipped from the Berlin wall, I was thinking this must be fake, some plaster, some stones from another place, what could possibly drive us to buy such souvenirs to remember Berlin ? And yet, as one ponder about the significance of this history at Checkpoint Charlie, the many stories of survival and great men and women who risked their lives to help even strangers to come from the East into the West side of Berlin. Then, we realised that this is not just about Berlin, this is not about their internal war, the stories at Checkpoint Charlie inspires many up-rising, people coming forward to speak against political persecutions in various parts of  the world, many giving up their own lives as some were murdered to be silenced. Then this chip of rock from Berlin world is significant, it represents many stories that need to be told to the world, many stories we have not yet heard.

The stories were so amazingly creative, some with sad outcomes, most with happy endings.

And so, our trip to Berlin ended with bags of stones chips from Berlin walls in our bag, a reminder of the great hope we have in democracy and in people's power to survive.