Eva Zimer had more to say than I could possibly type today. The message she dictated on the first day of Maueramt started like this:
"In 1961 the wall was built and in 1962 I came to Berlin at age 25 because of a six-year correspondence with my future husband." It seems Zimer, who was originally from Czechoslovakia, had been on a visit to Berlin when she met a young man on the subway platform. He asked for her address, and so began their love story.
Her beloved sent a pile of official papers from East Berlin, authorizing their marriage. But it took two more years for the Czech authorities to give their OK. "So on June 30, 1962, I got married. Without knowing German. We even had a child before we could talk to each other."
Zimer never changed her citizenship and said that gave her privileges her East German husband didn't have. "He couldn't visit his family. But I could visit his family. So I became a sort of courier between them."
Finally, she said, the wall fell. "It had to happen," said Zimer. "Good that it happened without any lives being lost."
