TIME

Ein Berlin, remembering the Wall, and my own past

THE FIRST TIME I LEFT BERLIN I WAS A VERY SMALL GERMAN person with an American mother, a German father and a very odd accent in English. I sounded like I’d been raised by 19th century nuns, or Jackie Kennedy. (This is what happens when you learn a language in a vacuum.)

After a year of American kindergarten, I didn’t remember much about Germany except for the pink marzipan piglets they sold in pastry shops and my babysitter Gerde. She was a

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