WALLED-IN WEST BERLIN: A WEST BERLIN GIRL’S JOURNEY TO FREEDOM

Reviewed by Pennell Paugh

March 9, 2024 (San Diego) – San Diego author J. Elke Ertle was born and raised in West Berlin during the aftermath of World War II, when the city had become the focus of an escalating Cold War between East and West.

In her memoir, Walled-In: A West Berlin Girl’s Journey to Freedom, she beautifully describes how her strict rearing was similar to the restrictions of the Wall on her city’s people.  

The following excerpt gives a sense of her conflict:

Another wave of hopelessness rose up from the pit of my stomach. The feeling extended far beyond my small bedroom. I felt cut off from the world. Outside, I was surrounded by the Berlin Wall. Inside, I felt walled-in by barriers far higher and less penetrable than the political monstrosity. As I stood in front of my small window and watched the setting sun paint the roofs golden, I wished I were dead. My world was devoid of color; I saw only shades of gray and black. Although the busses ran on schedule, the pedestrians walked down the street as usual, and everything around me had an air of familiarity, I wondered whether I would ever be able to feel pleasure again. The fact that I was still breathing was nothing more than an automatic function.

Looking back that night, I realized that I had made a huge mistake when Günter and I first met. When my parents forbade me to see him again, I should have rebelled on the spot. Instead of trying to meet him in secret, I should have fought for my rights. My parents’ restrictions now reminded me of the dandelions we used to battle in our garden plot in Boxfelde. When we saw the first one pop up in the lawn, we should have pulled it right away, but we turned our backs and planned to do it later. The next time we looked, there were hundreds of them, becoming almost impossible to eradicate. The same had happened here. I had ignored the first sanction. Now, the diktats were multiplying like weeds.

In her early teens Ertle befriended an American service family and glimpsed a very different lifestyle, one that encouraged dialogue and mutual acceptance. When she fell in love in her late teens, it ignited a parent-daughter conflict that damaged her self-esteem.

Interweaving history with her personal experiences, the author artfully describes her world, her struggles, and her choice for freedom as well as the costs she pays for that freedom.

Now retired, the author lives in San Diego with her husband of four decades. She holds a master’s degree in Industrial-Organizational Psychology from San Diego State University and a Certificate in Fitness Exercise Science from the University of California, San Diego, and currently teaches group exercise classes on a part-time basis.