I was already allowed to travel to the West in June 1989 to visit my sick parents; they moved to West Germany in 1974, after my father retired as a pastor. Although I didn’t feel very comfortable doing so, I picked up my Begrüßungsgeld (welcome money) from the relevant office and applied for a West German passport at the same time. It was kind of humiliating to beg for handouts as a second-class citizen. But I did it and it was the right thing to do as an East German in West Germany – I wanted to travel!
I had already travelled a lot from East Germany too and had illegally travelled through the whole of the Soviet Union, the Baltic States (where my ancestors came from), Russia, Siberia, the Caucasus, Georgia – but now I finally wanted to see Western Europe.
In July 1989, I visited my parents again, picked up my passport which was ready in the meantime and tore through Italy in my parents’ car for a week with my Estonian friend Mati: Ravenna, Florence, Siena, Bologna, Rome, Naples! As by the amazing museums, churches, the Tuscan landscape, where we were also randomly present at my friend Marcello’s wedding, I was especially impressed by the small town of San Gimignano. The noble towers reminded me of the fortified tower houses in the Caucasus and when I discovered at a vernissage that they had naturally pressed wine there, which tasted exactly as it did in Georgia, I was totally thrilled. It then became clear to me that Europe is one and belongs together! Even though it probably won’t happen in my lifetime, I have dreamed of a United States of Europe ever since, where we can proudly say: “I am European!”
