Ich bin ein Berliner.

In 1963, the same year my father was born, US President John F. Kennedy gave a speech in West-Berlin in which he referred to free men as Berliners. He then preceded by saying “Ich bin ein Berliner.” The phrase became to mean “I am free. “ 24 years later when my mother moved to East-Berlin, the city was still divided in half, and access to the west remained an utopian dream for Soviet students. Two years later however the wall fell and East-Berliners could also utter the words “Ich bin ein Berliner.” At the same time in Dresden, Germans started to attack the KGB headquarters, where Vladimir Putin was stationed. As a junior officer he found himself in an awkward position. He was trying to hold back the Germans so KGB officers inside could destroy documents detailing KGB operations but it quickly became obvious that Putin would not be able to do so for long. He attempted to call for backup from Moscow, only to find out that Moscow was crumbling down. Putin uttered the words “Moscow is silent” to a colleague of his. In this moment, the roles had reversed and my parents became free Berliners, with Putin at their mercy. In 2020, are the roles about to be reversed again?

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