We Build the Berlin Wall
The Family Business, Chapter 9
“Well, come in, Martin, you’re letting the cold in,” she said, “Jimmy’s waiting for you in the kitchen.”
I nodded, tried to smile, and kicked off my shoes, stepping up into the warmth of the house using all of my inner resolve not to look at her.
We sat around the kitchen table and planned, sipping on hot chocolate.
Jimmy’s dad nursed a large mug of coffee that never seemed to empty.
“Jimmy said that Mr. Radler gave you some drawings?” he said.
I took the manila folder from my bag and handed them to Mr. Rivers.
He opened the folder and laid the drawings in the middle of the table. He looked at them and frowned.
I picked up a sheet and studied it. The paper was waxy with a bluish tint, like a blueprint. The legend in the corner and the labels were written in a foreign language I didn’t understand. Also, some of the characters were reversed. Strange, I thought.
“I wonder how Radler got his hands on these?” he said.
Jimmy and I looked at each other and shrugged.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to hold onto these,” he said, “but here’s what I’ll do.”
Looking at the drawings on the table, he took a fresh piece of drawing paper and sketched a cross-section of the wall, transferring the measurements from the original drawings and printing labels in English.
“This is incomplete,” he said, “but it should be enough for you to start work on your scale model. Martin, you said you had looked at some model kits that we might be able to use in the diorama?”
“Yes,” I said, “there are some soldiers and other things which I think we will be able to use.”
“Good,” he said, then asked, “what scale do the models use?”
“1:35,” I replied.
He thought for a minute.
“That’ll work,” he said. “The measurements are metric, and you should be able to translate that easily. Everything you build for the diorama will be 1/35th of the original size in the sketch I made. Do you understand?”
Jimmy and I both nodded that we understood.
“To make things easy,” he continued, “cut a one-meter square of plywood and use that as the base of the diorama. That will give us thirty-five meters per side, or about 115 feet. Large enough to show features like this guard tower here.”
He pointed to the drawing.
“Jimmy,” he said, “take Martin down to the workshop and find a piece of plywood for the base. First, I need to make some phone calls. Then I will be down to join you.”
He got up from his chair, took the original drawings, placed them back into the folder, and disappeared into his office, closing the door behind him. Soon we could hear one side of a heated conversation coming from the other side of the door.
“C’mon,” said jimmy, taking the sketch and his cup.
I picked up my cup and followed, wondering what Mr. Rivers had seen in the drawings. I couldn’t help but think that we had seen something we weren’t supposed to have seen. That feeling was confirmed a few minutes later when Mr. Rivers came into the workshop.
“Mr. Radler gave you the wrong drawings,” he said. “He has the English version, and he’ll give them to you next week. In the meantime, we can work from the sketch I made.”
Over the next two weekends, we worked hard to complete our project, first working from the sketch then using a new drawing from Mr. Radler to guide us.
First, we cut the base and made a rough landscape using papier mache. Then we drew the positions for the fences, the guard tower, the dog run, the barricades, and other features. Since we only had a cross-section, we took some creative liberty in how we would place the objects on the diorama.
We built various objects from Styrofoam, wooden chopsticks, wire, fishing line, window screen, sawdust, and balsa wood.
A “concrete” fence was first, topped with barbed wire and broken glass on the East Berlin side. Next to that was a wire fence, also topped with barbed wire. Then, a dog run for the guard dogs, the vast no man’s land, or “death strip,” a walking path for the guards, tank barricades, a “vehicle trap,” and finally, another “concrete” fence along the actual border between East and West.
We also constructed light towers to light the entire area and a square watchtower and painted everything to look life-like. Finally, I bought some scale model German soldiers for additional realism, painted them to look like the East German guards (Volkspolizei, or “Vopos”), and placed them at several locations on the diorama, including the guard path and the top of the watchtower. I even found a small, fierce-looking German Shepherd toy to place on the dog run.
As we put the finishing touches on our masterpiece, Jimmy and I looked over our handiwork.
“This looks really good,” I said.
He nodded, running his finger along the top of the border fence.
“Dad said he will take it to school for us next week,” he said. “We’ll need to write down what we want to say when we show this to the class.”
We went back upstairs to the kitchen and started planning our report.
I had a really good feeling about our work and started looking forward to telling the rest of the class about The Wall.
The class filed into the room and began removing jackets and hats. A low murmur of conversation overcame the clanging of radiators working hard to keep the classroom warm on the cold winter’s afternoon.
Mr. Radler motioned to Jimmy and me to begin our preparations for the report.
We approached the front of the classroom where our model of the Berlin Wall sat in its place of honor on a folding card table, covered by a thin black cloth, ready to be revealed.
Mr. Radler stood by the table and addressed the class.
“We’ll wait just a minute for the others,” he said. “I’ve asked the Seventh Grade history class to join us.”
Our schoolmates started coming in through the double doors and took positions standing at the back of the room and along the sides.
Jimmy and I carefully removed the covering from the model, and the classroom became silent.
I took what looked like an aluminum pen from my pocket and pulled on the end, unfolding a telescoping pointer which we would use to show various objects on the model as we talked.
“The Berlin Wall was built almost overnight, on the 13th of August, 1961,” I started.
I looked up and happened to glance toward my empty seat, then stopped.
My heart started racing. My head started pounding, and I felt a little dizzy.
My seat was occupied by Jimmy’s sister, looking at me with her deep blue eyes. She smiled.
I looked around and tried to clear my head. I opened my mouth to continue, but my mouth was dry, and try as I might, I couldn’t get a sound to come out of my throat.
Jimmy frowned at me in anticipation, made a sign for me to continue, then rolled his eyes as I tried to clear my throat, and took up where I had left off.
“It was built to keep the citizens of East Berlin in their place,” he continued, “to keep them from escaping to the West.”
As the shame started to build deep in my gut, I was grateful that Jimmy was there to back me up, but I knew that I would owe him something big for this.
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