Bookshelf spoke with Serge Schmemann, author of When the Wall Came Down (Kingfisher).
You have written several books for adults, but this is your first book for young people—and your first on the subject of the Berlin Wall. What led you to write about this topic for a younger audience?
My previous book, Echoes of a Native Land [Knopf, 1997], is technically an "adult" book, but I wrote it thinking about younger generations, and the importance of passing on to them a living image of different worlds-the worlds of Russia and the Soviet Union. So when Alex Ward of the Times approached me to do a book for a younger audience about the Berlin Wall, I readily accepted. The fall of the Berlin Wall is very much a sequel, a continuation of the story about Eastern Europe emerging from war and Communism. The notion of presenting history as a story also appealed to me very much, since that is the way I look at the events I cover as a reporter.
Newspaper reporting is really storytelling. We call our articles "stories," and we try to tell them in a way that even people who don't know all the background can understand them. So I approached this book as I would write a story that would appeal even to readers who are not familiar with the history.
One of the many supplementary articles you include at the book's conclusion highlights the role that teenagers played in bringing about the fall of the Wall. Did that contribute to your decision to aim the book at young people?
My own kids were with me in Berlin when Germany was reunited, and they were with me in Moscow when the Soviet Union collapsed. We talked about these things at the dinner table, at their schools, with their friends. So I have always looked at events in part through the eyes of teenagers, and I have always found their perspective and their reactions enthralling. Young people are idealistic and direct: their questions go right to the heart of a matter. Why does there have to be a wall? If it's OK for people on the other side to have music, why is it wrong on this side? So yes, indeed, the role that teenagers had in challenging the Berlin Wall, and the role that my teenagers had in shaping my views, played a big role.
Why do you think it's important for young people to learn about the building and demolition of the Wall?
The Berlin Wall was a symbol for the major forces of the 20th century—World War II, Communism, the Cold War. It was a century in which two dictatorships, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, tried to impose evil ideas on the entire world. The Wall was linked to them both, as well as to the ideals of democracy. So the story of the Wall is a perfect vehicle to tell young people the story of their world, how it came to be what it is, and what mistakes to avoid.
Your decision to include personal details in the account (your experience at Checkpoint Charlie, the discovery that one of your sources had been a spy) lends the book a greater sense of immediacy. Was it difficult to choose which of the details to include? Are there any you wished you could have incorporated but didn't have room for?
Actually, going back through my memory was the most fun. The events of the fall of 1989, when the Wall came down, were some of the most memorable events I covered in a long career, and it was really great to rummage through the memories. There are many more yarns I could have spun, but I think I chose the ones that gave the best illustration of what an adventure it was.
Specifically, you chronicle the history of the Wall through the experience of your assistant Viktor Homola. Tell us more about why you chose to employ him as a recurring thread through the book.
Poor Viktor! I don't know if he's aware that he's being immortalized this way. But seriously, the reason I include him in the story is he was a major part of the story. Before the Wall came down, he was my regular translator and driver in East Germany, so I learned a lot about life in the East through him and his family. And it was through his eyes that I also saw what it was like for someone who had never been West to suddenly see it all.
Do you think there are lessons to be learned from the history of the Wall that could be applied to the global situation today?
Oh, yes! The Wall carries many lessons. One is the great danger of assuming that your society, your nation has the whole truth, and trying to build a wall around it. The greatest lesson, perhaps, is about the remarkable spirit of people themselves. The Germans were burdened with a terrible legacy. They were defeated, divided and discouraged. Yet they had the spirit, the longing for freedom, to overcome all this. To me, the Wall is a story with a happy ending. At least I hope so.
What were the challenges for you, as someone accustomed to writing for adults, in addressing a younger audience?
Writing for adults and writing for young people is really not that different. As a reporter, I have always tried to write as clearly and simply as possible. I like clean, unadorned writing. So writing for a younger audience was largely an exercise in making my prose even more clear and direct, and in avoiding complicated digressions.
What do you hope readers will take away from this book?
I would be happy if readers came away with a greater sense that history is not a dull progression of dates, names, wars and incomprehensible treaties, but a story in which real people struggled with real problems. Knowing history is terribly important, not only to learn from it, but to understand that we are all part of a process in which we are shaped by things that happened before us, and we shape things that are to come.
