[WikiEN-l] Cla68 blocked for asking question

[Durova]

Yes, think about everything some.  But also realize that there is such a
thing as an excessive rant from someone who really really has crossed
the line in comparing a 24 hour block for trolling to the "East German
Stasi".

--Jimbo

******
Here's a rant of my own, and I hope a more pleasant one.

One of my claims to obscurity is that I happen to be one of the last people
in history to have crossed the Berlin Wall illegally.  I happened to be in
West Berlin three days before Checkpoint Charlie came down, which meant it
was legal for Germans to cross anywhere (there still was an East Germany but
everyone knew they were merging) and about half a dozen checkpoints existed
for other Europeans.  I visited the Brandenburg Gate and saw one of those
checkpoints, but as soon as the official saw the cover of my United States
passport he waved me away.

Within eyeshot of that spot was the most solemn memorial I've ever seen: a
line of white crosses.  This wasn't any kind of official thing but something
ordinary people had built to the people who had died trying to reach the
West.  Some of them were nothing more than a date; the name had never been
released.  But the people of West Berlin were saying "You're with us in
spirit."  The last cross was dated February 1989, just a few months before
the wall broke.

When I saw those crosses I decided to break that law as a gesture of respect
to those people.

I look German, and my accent was good enough that people couldn't tell I was
a foreigner if they'd had a couple of drinks first or I didn't have to chat
for too long.  So I sneaked onto the subway, which didn't work, and tried a
couple of other methods before I gave up and paid my five marks for a visa
over at Checkpoint Charlie.  I went for a stroll, then paused for half an
hour chipping away Berlin Wall pebbles from the East Berlin side.  My Swiss
army knife got ruined but it was worth it.

When twilight came I tried to retrace my steps, but I took a wrong turn
somehow and ended up at a dead end street...like all the streets that led
into the wall were.  The wall had some holes in it by that time - it was
actually two walls with a strip of sand in between that used to get raked
every day to make it easier to find footprints and shoot people.

The raking had been neglected and flowers were growing in that strip, and a
rabbit was hopping along nibbling on the flowers.  A woman came in from the
West Berlin side and walked her dog in it.  Then a man came up from behind
me and walked his bicycle across.  This was legal for them; they were
Germans.

I looked left and then right and thought "What are they going to do?  Shoot
me?"  And I escaped from East Berlin through the wall.

I see a few analogies from that to this edit war, but they're corny and
obvious.  I guess they don't need to be said.

-Durova