柏林墻倒塌25周年，那些逝去的生命

On Berlin Wall Anniversary, Somber Notes Amid Revelry

柏林墻倒塌25周年，那些逝去的生命

BERLIN — It was the morning after the best party ever, the tumult and joy that marked the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9, 1989. After 28 years, East Berliners were giddy with marvel that they could now visit the West.

柏林——這是1989年11月9日柏林墻倒塌后的第二天早上，有史以來最好的派對，以及它帶來的喧囂和欣喜剛剛結束。28年過去了，東柏林人為自己終于能夠前往西柏林而感到前所未有的驚喜。

Günter Taubmann felt different, as if, he said, “I am in the wrong movie.” Eight years earlier, his only child, Thomas, had been killed trying to cross the wall, one of 138 people who died at the barrier erected by the Communists in 1961 to stop Germans streaming out of the poor, repressive East.

金特·陶布曼(Günter Taubmann)卻有著不一樣的感受。他說，就像“進錯了電影”。八年前，他的獨子托馬斯(Thomas)在試圖越過柏林墻時遇害，是在那里喪命的 138名死者之一。1961年，為了阻止德國人大量逃離貧窮專制的東德，共產(chǎn)黨豎起了這道圍墻。

Now, someone at work had been to the West and back during that magical night, and was telling the tale. Mr. Taubmann’s Communist colleagues professed to be exultant over the end of the order they had long espoused. Workmates who had not mourned Thomas at the time of his death were suddenly solicitous.

到了此時，卻有同事在這個神奇的夜晚從西柏林往返，并講述著自己的見聞。對于他們長期擁護的秩序的終結，這些共產(chǎn)黨同志展現(xiàn)出一副興高采烈的樣子。在托馬斯去世時并未表示哀悼的那些同事，突然關心了起來。

“I didn’t know what they wanted from me, and then they started, ‘What bad luck! Your son could have waited,’ ” Mr. Taubmann recounted, his voice edgy with sarcasm. “I am normally a calm person, but there I got in such a fury. I simply threw them all out. ‘Just get out of my room.’ ”

“我不知道他們想從我這里得到什么，他們直接開始說，‘多倒霉啊!你兒子本來可以等等的，’”陶布曼回憶著，聲音里帶著諷刺的味道。“我通常是一個冷靜的人，但在那種時候，我變得怒氣沖沖，干凈利落地把他們都趕走了。‘趕緊從我房間里滾出去。’”

Once they were gone, “I poured out my heart” to those colleagues who had braved the intimidation of the secret police to attend Thomas’s funeral.

他們一走，“我就向一些同事傾吐心聲”。他們曾不顧秘密警察的恐嚇，前去參加了托馬斯的葬禮。

For most of Germany, Nov. 9 is a day to celebrate not just the opening of the wall but what came after: integration of East and West and the rise of a united and prosperous Germany that now helps lead Europe.

對大多數(shù)德國人而言，11月9日這一天值得慶祝的不僅僅是柏林墻的開放，還有隨后發(fā)生的事情：東德和西德的融合，以及一個如今引領歐洲的統(tǒng)一而繁榮的德國的崛起。

But for some Germans it also summons memories of the East Germany that was a state of informers and suspicions, public rigidity and private despair — none more so than the families and friends of those killed at the Berlin Wall, for whom the anniversary of its fall is tarnished by tragedy, pocked with the holes where a child, a spouse or sibling once was.

不過，對部分德國人而言，這一天也喚起了有關東德的記憶。那是一個充斥著告密和猜疑的國家，公共領域僵化，個人充滿絕望。對那些有家人和朋友在柏林墻遇害的人而言，這種回憶尤其深刻。在他們那里，對柏林墻倒塌的慶祝因為悲劇而黯然失色，讓他們想起了失去子女、配偶或兄弟姐妹的創(chuàng)傷。

To trace the victims is to delve behind the glamour and groove that is modern Berlin, deep into meticulously neat gardens and homes where most Germans live their ordered lives. The pain still sears, more than five decades after the first victims died, and a quarter-century after millions of German families divided by the Cold War came back together.

要追蹤這些受害人，需要探究當代柏林種種魅力和美妙的背后，深入到完美無瑕的花園和住宅的內(nèi)里。大部分德國人如今在這樣的地方過著井然有序的生活。然而，在離第一批受害人遇難已過去50多年，離數(shù)百萬因冷戰(zhàn)分離的德國家庭團圓已過去四分之一世紀后，痛苦的烙印依然揮之不去。

By far the majority of those killed trying to breach the fortified, 96-mile barrier were young men in their teens or 20s. Many more were tempted to take the risk in the first years than toward the end. Contrary to myths of heroism and betrayal attached variously by West and East to each escape, few who fled or tried to had a purely political motive.

在試圖越過那道96英里(155公里)長的堅固圍墻卻遇害的人當中，絕大部分是一二十歲的男性青少年。受到冒險念頭誘惑的人，在最初幾年遠比最后幾年多。不同于西德和東德為每一次逃離附上的英雄或背叛的宣傳性說辭，真正逃離或試圖行動的人中，并沒有多少抱著純粹的政治動機。

Thomas Taubmann was 26, divorced, a college dropout who was drinking too much when, on the grim weekend of Dec. 12-13, 1981, as martial law was declared in Poland and as East and West German leaders met, he tried to scale the wall at a spot where East and West rail tracks ran parallel. His parents, interrogated separately by the police, never heard the exact truth, but Thomas was apparently crushed by a train.

在1981年12月12日和13日那個陰郁的周末，26歲的托馬斯·陶布曼試圖在東德和西德鐵軌并行的一個地方翻越柏林墻。他曾在大學期間退學，當時已經(jīng)離異，并且染上了酗酒的毛病。他行動的當口，波蘭宣布了戒嚴令，東德和西德領導人在舉行會晤。后來，托馬斯的父母被警方單獨審問。他們從未聽到過確切的真相，但托馬斯似乎是遭到了一列火車的碾壓。

His mother, Elisabeth, a nurse and a lay judge at an East Berlin court where Thomas was due to appear on shoplifting charges, never got over it. “She was sick at heart, and she died of it,” said her husband, now a sprightly 80.

他的母親伊麗莎白(Elisabeth)是一名護士，同時在東柏林一家法院擔任非專業(yè)法官。這家法院也是托馬斯本應該接受入店行竊指控的地方。伊麗莎白從來沒有從兒子的死中走出來。“她得了心臟病，因為這個過世了，”她的丈夫說。他現(xiàn)年80歲，精神矍鑠。

After his wife’s death in 1999, Mr. Taubmann requested the file of the secret police. Only then did he read the note that Thomas had left for “Dear Mummy! Dear Daddy!” in which the son intuited that his father had the stronger nerves, and implored him “to help Mom over the hump.” Only then did the father know for sure that, without warning, his son had tried to escape.

在妻子1999年去世后，陶布曼先生提請查閱秘密警察的文件。直到那時，他才讀到了托馬斯為“親愛的媽媽!親愛的爸爸!”留下的信。兒子在信中料到父親會更堅強，因此懇求他“幫助媽媽度過難關”。也是直到那時，這位父親才確定地知道，兒子真的打算逃離，卻沒有告訴任何人。

As to what prompted Axel Hannemann to try, at 17, to cross the Spree River to West Berlin in June 1962, no one will ever know. His farewell note said he would reveal the motive “once I’ve made it.” Fifty-two years later, his only surviving sibling, Jürgen, seven years his senior, still tears up.

至于是什么促使17歲的阿謝爾·漢內(nèi)曼(Axel Hannemann)在1962年6月計劃穿過斯普雷河來到西柏林，將永遠無人知曉。他在告別信中說，“我成功了之后”，會公開自己的動機。52年過去了，他唯一在世的手足、比他大七歲的哥哥于爾根(Jürgen)仍然淚流滿面。

“It was completely senseless, what he did,” Jürgen Hannemann mused at his cottage near the family’s hometown, Cottbus. “I just can’t understand. We had a good relationship, and I loved him.”

“他做的事，太沒有意義了，”于爾根·漢內(nèi)曼在位于家鄉(xiāng)科特布斯附近的自家小屋里若有所思地說。“我根本沒法理解。我們關系很好。我愛他。”

Axel’s escape attempt occurred when the wall was not yet a year old and an object of Communist zeal. But eventually, Jürgen Hannemann said, the Stasi stopped interrogating friends from work, Axel’s dance lessons and his tennis club. Axel’s daring — jumping on a cargo ship headed for West Berlin, being discovered, then plunging into the Spree and getting shot in view of people on the western bank — receded into history.

阿謝爾試圖逃脫時，柏林墻建成還不到一年，是共產(chǎn)主義者為之狂熱的對象。于爾根·漢內(nèi)曼說，最終史塔西不再審問阿爾謝的同事，還有他舞蹈課和網(wǎng)球俱樂部的朋友。阿謝爾的大膽行為——他跳上了一艘前往西柏林的貨船，被人發(fā)現(xiàn)，隨后跳入斯普雷河，在西岸人的注視下遭到射殺——成為了歷史的塵埃。

The decades have softened the blow of loss, but during interviews over the past two months, each family still nursed bitterness — particularly that no border guard who shot their loved one received more than probation. Legal wrangling over whether there was a shoot-to-kill order for the wall’s heavily armed sentinels has spared the guards, not the victims.

幾十年的歲月沖淡了失去親人的打擊，但從過去兩個月的采訪中可以看出，每個家庭仍然深藏著痛苦——尤其是因為，射殺他們親人的邊界警衛(wèi)都沒有受到比緩刑更嚴厲的懲罰。關于柏林墻荷槍實彈的哨兵是否接到了擊斃命令的法律糾紛讓這些士兵逃脫了責任，卻并沒有給受害者一個說法。

In Berlin these days, visitors engage in “wall tourism.” The American-Soviet border crossing known as Checkpoint Charlie has spawned constantly playing movies and a museum. In Bornholmer Strasse, where the wall first opened, an engraving that chronicles the events of Nov. 9, 1989, is on the bridge over the rails where Thomas Taubmann died.

如今在柏林，游客們可以體驗一把“柏林墻旅游”。在美國和蘇聯(lián)占領區(qū)之間的關卡，也就是被稱為“查理檢查哨”的地方，經(jīng)常播放影片，還建起了一座博物館。在伯恩霍莫大街——柏林墻首先被打通的地方——一座橋上雕刻的碑文記載了1989年11月9日的活動。橋下的鐵軌就是托馬斯·陶布曼殞命的地方。

Günter Taubmann is not much for ceremony. He is delighted that he and his wife followed her instinct, and reached out after the tragedy to Thomas’s ex-wife and son, Björn, just 5 when his father was killed. This fall, a great-granddaughter started school.

金特·陶布曼并沒有多少紀念的心思。他很高興，自己和妻子聽從了她的直覺，在悲劇發(fā)生后主動聯(lián)系了托馬斯的前妻和兒子比約恩(Björn)——父親死時，他才五歲。今年秋天，他們的重孫女就要上學了。