EDITH KURZWEIL
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agreed, it would have to be patrolled by an international body. The security
of Berlin, however, is maintained by the balance of power between the
United Stated and the Soviet Union-neither of whom want a nuclear war–
rather than by a less interested United Nations force. The diversities, it
seems to me, also were palpable in the general atmospheres of Berlin and
Jerusalem. Jerusalem's everyday life, though full of bustle and cultural
activities, of zest and involvement, seems tensed for unpleasant surprises as
well. Berlin, whose center reminds one of the fllms about the Weimar days,
and where outlandish dothes, green, orange, and purple hair along with other
manifestations of punk compete for attention, by comparison seems settled.
Its wall is ignored, along with the countrymen on its other side, except when
West Berliners briefly are reminded of it by their politicians. They hailed
Gorbachev, for example, when he told them, referring to the wall, that
"nothing is permanent," expecting life to go on as it has, and planning their
vacations in Uzbekhastan and Samarkand "unless the situation there gets out
ofhand."
I came up against the Berlin Wall unexpectedly, when visiting the
Martin Gropius Bau, a squat, imposing and marvelous premodernist structure
by Walter Gropius's uncle. I had been told to visit the excellent exhibit,
"Europe and the Orient: 800-1900" and was not alerted to the fact that it
adjoined no-man's land and could be observed from a Soviet watch tower.
Nor was I aware of the museum's permanent collection of works by "lesser"
contemporaries ofKlee and Klimt, or of its scant, pitiful collection ofJudaica.
Upon seeing the handful of religious items, and portraits ofa number of
Jewish leaders and intellectuals of the Weimar period, it occurred to me that
museums around Germany now must be vying for the few items the fervid
Nazis failed to destroy.
From a nearby room came sounds of music. Overcome by curiosity, I
followed them: they were produced by a television set playing early Soviet
revolutionary films-showing workers who were dropping their tools and
their chains, who eagerly joined their comrades singing the
InternatirJruLl
and
other catchy revolutionary tunes, and who were walking toward an ever–
better life while waving the red flag. I stood there alone, caught up by this
past; in front of me were five empty, black chairs. What a wonderful dream
the communists had, I reminded myself, as I thought of the wall outside; of
Gorbachev's current dream to capitalize communism, and of the military put–
down of the Chinese students-which was chronicled in great detail in the
German newspaper I was carrying. (A few days later, in Hazorea, I learned
that a self-sufficient kibbutz-a microcosm of the communist dream-also must
rely on capitalist management and on modern technology.) And like Lenin, I
asked myself, and continue to ask myself, "What is to be done?"-to ensure
