The wall fell on exactly the same day I came out of the maternity ward, after giving birth to my daughter Pia. So initially we didn’t really notice any of the excitement. In the evening we watched “Aktuelle Kamera” (Lit. ‘current camera’, a flagship newscast on state television in the GDR) but we couldn’t understand what exactly Mr Schabowski was stuttering to himself.
It wasn’t until three weeks later that I crossed over with Pia. We went through Wollank Strasse, the crossing closest to us. I got on the S-Bahn heading to Wedding and had to get off again after three stops. The wagon was too crammed and a group of drunks were always bumping against the stroller.
I got out somewhere in Wedding and walked past a bank or a Sparkasse. I picked up my money there and then. The official behind counter looked at me funnily when I held up my little daughter and said: “For the baby as well, please.” It was my first time in West Berlin and it was very exciting. Not because of the money, I already got 200 DM from an Aunt in Bonn before the reunification. The welcome money went toward our first trip to Tuscany, which was only later, in the spring of 1991. Eleven cities in eleven days. It was a Studiosus-Reise (a tour operator that organised cultural trips) and we were the most exotic on the bus. That’s also how were treated because except for us everyone else was from the West. It was strange. They talked almost entirely about Mercedes and the like, which, for us, was a different world.