The Resurging of the Berlin Wall

Historical events are just that; historical. In other words, they belong to the past.

However, they seem to have a glimpse of renaissance where they slowly emerge from a cluster

of events that provoke certain decisions to be taken by those who assume their point of view is

the best for a nation. This is the case of the Berlin Wall, a wall that separated a nation into two

sectors. It stood still for almost thirty years and it finally got demolished by those who opposed

to such governmental aberration. Now, the building of a new wall, that would physically divide

not a nation but two nations, is up on the air. The ongoing issues in the United States of America

due to our president, Mr. Donald Trumps idea of building a wall that would separate Mexico and

the United States, bring to the present time the memories West Berlin went through when the

Berlin Wall still existed. The study of the poem It Was A Weird Wall by Vera Pavlova and a

photograph titled A Berlin Wall Rescue by an unknown author, will be analyzed to parallel

both, a past and a possible future event.

A little piece of poetry can say more than a hundred pages filled with non-sense words.

This is the case of the poem It Was A Weird Wall. The words used in this poem depict a very

profound feeling the author has for the German people who had to suffer the consequences of an

authoritarian government. The author makes usage of a narrative poem to express what it was

like to be trapped on either side of the wall and not being able to know what the other side of the

wall hid behind it. The author must have encountered this task very difficult. Since, writing such

a small piece of literature and delivering so much information contained in each word seems

everything but easy. The poems structure looks so simple, a set of fifteen lines with no more

than ten words per line. The vocabulary used by the author seems easy to understand when

reading the words alone, but once the words are put into context, the meaning seems to be
greater than what originally was. Although, most vocabulary words are easy to understand, the

author includes some words whose meaning is complex in every way. Not just grammatically

speaking but subject matter as well. The poem itself looks plain at the beginning and it takes a

radical turn at the end. Mentioning a date, a date in particular that is probably stuck in German

peoples head, a date to remember, a date that changed their lives for good. A very simple way to

drive peoples attention. No specific nor unique, nor artistic or elaborated font is needed. The

sole fact of seeing the date when the Berlins Wall was demolished is enough to read the poem

from beginning to end. In this way, the authors purpose of getting to peoples most profound

side of their being, is fulfilled.

On the other hand, a different genre that targets the same event, is used to open up a

window to the past. A photograph taken by an unknown photographer looks ordinary, but there is

nothing ordinary about it. When people say that a picture is worth a thousand words, they are in

the absolute right. The photograph A Berlin Wall Rescue shows a soldier from East Berlin

trying to bring a little kid, who got separated from his parents, to the other side of the wall. No

colors are needed to describe the desperate feeling the photographer captured in this image. A

feeling that, not only those who stayed at the West side of Berlin experienced but even the one

from those who were protected by the government as well. Anything from the facial

expression of the soldier that demonstrates a sense of fear to be seen by the other soldiers, to the

roughness of the barbed wire made wall, this photograph, sadly depicts the unfortunate times

Berlin went through for years. Body language plays an important role when it comes to freezing

time in an image. A kid can extend his arms out for several reasons. It signals different meanings

depending on the situation; the need to be rocked because he is ready to get some sleep, the need

of being close to mom, or simply because he is tired and wants to be in moms arms. However, in
this case the circumstances are different. He extends his arms out to a stranger, knowing at his

short age that this stranger holds the happiness stolen in his bare hands that are lifting the barbed

wire. Other details in the picture are also relevant and filled with meaning. The outfits both, the

soldier ant the kid worn by the soldier and the kid, tell us that nothing else mattered. The

soldiers outfit make us think, the weather, at the time the picture was taken, was everything but

hot. Whereas the kids outfit tells us the weather conditions were indeed cold since he is wearing

a sweater. But what makes us think that the conditions the kid lived with whoever was taking

care of him were not the best ones as he is wearing shorts. But all those details come to second

place in the kids and in the soldiers head. There is one task to accomplish and that is all that

matters.

Despite the difference of the two genres used to describe the injustice a nation lived for

years, both make us think that though the suffering of the people who got separated by a wall

was immense, there is still hope for all of them. The poem It Was A Weird Wall points out a

date in which the wall was brought down allowing families to get back together. On the other

hand, the picture A Berlin Wall Rescue depicts hope in a different way. The hope a soldier

gives a little kid of getting reunited with his family. Not only the violence, the suffering, the

desperate feelings of being separated by a wall are somehow portrayed in the poem and in the

picture. Focusing in the negative is probably something people need to change so the actual

positive changes come to their lives. Yes, these two genres are all about division, separation,

suffering, sadness, injustice, and much more. But they are also about changes, they are also about

something humanity needs to feed a little more often, they are about hope.

The people who these two genres were intended for were not just the people who lived

back in the times where the Berlin Wall was up. We are in the 2000s and we are still seeing
how an event from the past that caused a lot of suffering can be a reality that strikes our own

nation. Not just people who like to read a piece of literature but also people who was and is more

driven by what an image can tell, become the main audience of these two genres. The author of

the poem It Was A Weird Wall intents to inform the audience of a sad situation a country was

living in and at the same time to wake them up from a nightmare caused by those who saw a

nation not as one, but as two. A broken nation where unity had no meaning. The font used by the

Vera Pavlova is not a font that a typewriting machine was ready for. This font was different; it

was a font with a huge sense of sadness. Similarly, the photographer that captured the famous

picture A Berlin Wall Rescue share the same intentions as Vera Pavlova. The photographer,

wants to deliver a message to his audience. A message that comes with no words but with an

image. An image that if it could be zoomed, it would probably let the audience see all the tears

shed by a kid whose happiness lies on the other side of the wall. The happiness only mom and

dad can give to their child. The simple yet informative piece of paper where the photograph was

printed on takes a lot of meaning once is seen by the audiences eyes.

It is clear that both genres reflect a historical event in a clear and concise way. Providing

a date where a wall was brought down tells us the author of the poem, Vera Pavlova, researched

facts that dealt with such event and included them in her short but meaningful fifteen-line poem.

In the same way, the photographer brings in to an image not one but several facts that inform the

audience the time, because of the decade-like outfits, the place, the circumstances, and the

feelings lived at the time a moment captured by the camera, surfaced on a piece of paper.

The response of the audience can go from a deep sense of sadness reflected on a wet

piece of paper where the poem was written on or on the piece of paper where the picture was

printed on. It is important to mention that the first genre hereon discussed, the poem written by
Vera Pavlova, does own a sense of credibility since the author has published a number of poems

before. As for the second genre, the photograph, it lacks of credibility since it is from an

unknown author. The audience was exposed to two major feelings with these two genres. The

common denominator; sadness. The common outcome; hope. The resurging of the Berlin Wall in

our own country brings to our nation a sense of sadness but also a sense of hope since a nation

was capable of tearing it down. We are a strong nation. If a wall is built in our own land, we can

eventually, hopefully, ultimately tear it down too.

 References

These 10 Shocking Photos Show The Lowest Humanity Has Ever Been. They're Almost

Unimaginable. (n.d.). Retrieved February 08, 2017, from

http://www.viralnova.com/shocking-photos-humanity/

Voices Education Project. (n.d.). Retrieved February 08, 2017, from

http://voiceseducation.org/content/berlin-wall-poetry-wall