They are from countries like Poland, Latvia, Bulgaria or Slovenia. They are 40, 60 or over. They left their countries long before 1989 or just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. In twelve filmed interviews, they tell us about their experiences of life under communism. This series of videos ends with an account on West Berlin, a city within two walls.

    The testimonies

  • Piotr Blonski

    Piotr Blonski – Poland
    Thursday 1 October 2009
     “Everybody knew we were pretending. Some pretended in a criminal way; others made arrangements.”
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  • Antonia Bernard

    Antonia Bernard – Slovenia
    Monday 5 October 2009
     “When I arrived in Paris and saw the piles of books at Gibert bookshop, I thought “this is wonderful!”
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  • Ene Rammeld

    Ene Rammeld – Estonia
    Wednesday 7 October 2009
     “At that time, when you had written a script, you had to send it to Moscow.”
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  • Jiri Slavicek

    Jiri Slavicek – Czech Republic
    Friday 9 October 2009
     “Russia was a communist country attacking other communists!”
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  • Maria Maïlat

    Maria Maïlat – Romania
    Monday 12 October 2009
     “We were also requested to write certain kinds of poems celebrating Ceausescu or praising the Genius of the Carpathians.”
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  • Elena Melusova

    Elena Melusova – Slovakia
    Wednesday 14 October 2009
     “We could not believe in the crumbling of the system. We still had the 1968 events in mind.”
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  • Guntars Abols

    A. Nagobads Abols & G. Abols – Latvia
    Friday 16 October 2009
     “The fall of the Berlin Wall is one of those rare moments in history where things seem to go in the right direction.”
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  • Rouja Lazarova

    Rouja Lazarova – Bulgaria
    Monday 19 October 2009
     “What kind of school would teach lies to its pupils all their life? You wake up when you're forty and realize you don’t know anything”
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  • Inga Lanchas

    Inga Lanchas – Lithuania
    Wednesday 21 October 2009
     “For me, the Berlin Wall fell on August 23rd, 1989, the day I saw the Lithuanian flag flying in the sky.”
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  • Erik Poeplow

    Erik Poeplow – ex-GDR
    Friday 23 October 2009
     “My grand-father would say to me: this system can't last because there's not added value. We live on what we have already and we are going to deplete our resources.”
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  • Marie Wiesner

    Marie Wiesner – Hungaria
    Monday 26 October 2009
     “A lot of French citizens were surprised, almost suspicious as if I was making things up.”
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  • Jacqueline Hénard

    Jacqueline Hénard – West Berlin
    Wednesday 28 October 2009
     “The fall of the Berlin Wall is the only time in my life when I felt more German than Berliner.”
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