I finished reading A Night Divided today, and I’m intrigued anew by the Berlin Wall.
I was there in 1993 and saw the chunk left up as a display, complete with a portion of the Death Strip, the up to 160-yard strip between the two walls that contained armed watchtowers, guard dogs, floodlights, and tripwire machine guns.
What still sticks in my mind from that trip to the wall is the juxtaposition of tools of intimidation and violence with the signs of the irrepressible human spirit represented in the graffiti art on the walls and the stories of courageous and harrowing tales of attempts at escape, the vast majority of which ended in death.
This book was a page-turner, and now I’m interested in reading true accounts from life on either side of the wall. Historical fiction is great that way: it hooks you in nice and easy, and then sets you on your way to dig deeper.
This book
My Corner of the Village 