Dividing Line

We were cruising through the summer in 1961. The locusts and cicadas told us how hot the days would be. It was hot and humid long before the sun came up, even in the early hours when Dad was leaving for work. Life would be good these last few weeks before returning to school and the Fourth Grade. Ah summer. Not a care in the world.
We would wake up one Sunday, the 13th of August it was, to find out that the Communists, the East German ones this time, were creating a stir over in Berlin. They were closing off the border between their zone of the city and that of the west, provoking another confrontation between us and the Russians. A wall would go up, keeping West Germans out, but most importantly, keeping East Germans in. At first it was a barbed wire fence, brick barricades and rows of tanks at major checkpoints. All the trains and subways were stopped, and soldiers stood on opposite sides, wondering what would happen next.
The Russians, whose idea this was, didn't want people free to get out of their socialist "utopia". You see, thousands of East Germans were simply walking into West Germany and never coming back. They were seeking work and personal freedom, and their leaving was hurting the East German economy which wasn't so good in the first place.
The East Germans were telling us that it was an anti-fascist wall put up to protect East Germans from "capitalist terrorists"; to prevent spies from crossing over and creating unrest in their new society. They were preventing World War III, or so they said.
This was serious. We could hear the adults talk about it in hushed tones, and the evening newscasts talked of growing tensions and the threat of another war.
Would we fight the Russians over this? Would H-bombs be falling on Philadelphia and Fort Dix, wiping out me and everybody else in Woodbury Heights and all the rest of South Jersey? I couldn't say that "Now I lay me down to sleep" prayer any more. I didn't want to get to that "if I should die before I wake" part, it was all too real now.
We watched on the news as the wall went up and listened to the Communists tell us how wonderful life was in East Germany; how their citizens needed protection from the evils of the Western Allies.
We saw East Germans escaping this "wonderful world". They jumped over the wire; even one of their border guards did it for all the world to see. A man drove up to one of the barriers, put the top down on his convertible, and slid beneath it. People would jump from the windows of buildings that were on the border line, and two families, the Wetzels and Strlzycks made a hot air balloon out of nylon and floated their way to freedom. So the barriers were lowered and windows blocked up and the sale of nylon fabric was prohibited.
Still, the East Germans persisted. Life over there was just the same as it was under the Nazis. Spying and informing on your friends and neighbors and your families was the norm, and the secret police were no different than the Gestapo. Work was hard to come by, and the economy was in ruins, so the Germans on the Eastern side of the wall were determined to cross, no matter what the cost.
I saw all of this on the nightly news. Walls going up to replace the wire. People crying and waving to their relatives on the other side. Russian and American tanks facing each other, wondering if they'd ever get the order to fire. Stories of spies being exchanged, and accusations flying. Would it end with missiles and bombs falling from the sky, and what did it all really mean?
How could this happen, I'd wonder.
Why would people do this to one another?
How could countries put up walls to keep people from going to work?
Walls so they couldn't live as they'd like?
Walls so they can't be free?