Our Life Behind the Berlin Wall by Gregory W. Sandford

Author:Gregory W. Sandford [Sandford, Gregory W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, General
ISBN: 9781662403613
Google: Iv8WEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Page Publishing Inc
Published: 2021-01-25T00:46:16+00:00

Seder supper with representatives of the American Jewish Committee visiting East Berlin to celebrate High Holy Days in 1987

Thanksgiving Dinner for 60

We chose Thanksgiving as our opportunity to show appreciation to my many religious contacts. It had appeal not only as an ecumenical religious holiday but also as an occasion to showcase American values in their best light. We led off with some appropriate Bible readings, followed by the traditional story of the feast of gratitude shared by the Pilgrims with their Native American neighbors.

It was also an occasion for some very good eating. Your mother’s personal cookbook still contains a menu for “Thanksgiving Dinner for 60,” including holiday favorites like corn bread, cranberry sauce, yams, and of course, three turkeys stuffed with your mother’s delicious dressing. Starting at 4:00 a.m., she spent hours cooking the turkeys one after another in our single oven. East Germany had turkeys, but nothing like the huge, meaty birds we brought over from the U.S. military commissary in West Berlin, along with all the other seasonal goodies. It was amazing to see how fast our East German guests could strip those turkeys once summoned to the banquet table. Most of the other traditional foods were unfamiliar to our guests, however, so we labeled them in German as best we could. The first year we translated cornbread literally into German, and it attracted almost no interest. The second year we translated it as “corn cake,” and it was a hit. What’s in a name?

One of our church invitees seemed surprised to find a few representatives of GDR officialdom, including one from the State Secretariat for Church Affairs, also among our guests. He asked discretely whether there was any deliberate strategy behind the guest list. I denied that there was, but that wasn’t entirely true. I was hoping to demonstrate that we wanted to maintain good relations with all sides in the church-state relationship and were happy to have the authorities witness our dealings with church people openly. This did not, however, prevent the police from trying to intimidate some of our guests on the way in. While your mother was in our bedroom assisting people with their coats, two women came in, obviously shaken, to tell her they had been jostled and harassed as they tried to approach our door. Your mother looked out to see a line of cops blocking our driveway.

You girls participated in the festivities, passing out nuts and hors d’oeuvres to the guests. Jeanine also kept an eye on the front door. When our ambassador arrived and asked her what she was doing, she said she was waiting to meet the ambassador. She seemed totally taken aback when he replied with a smile, “I’m the ambassador!” She was probably expecting to see the deputy ambassador, a tall, stately gentleman whom she sometimes referred to in awed tones as “the great old man.”

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