Everyone is looking
From the GDR Museum, Berlin
It’s Sunday morning in Prenzlauer, an area that was once part of East Berlin. An odd noise bounces around Zionskirchstraße. Too hard to ignore, and too difficult to say what it is exactly.
I go to the window for a sticky. So do a few other people across the street.
There we all are, leaning out of our apartment windows, trying to establish the source of the racket. Then we look around and see each other doing exactly the same thing.
God knows all, the saying goes, but the neighbours know more.
When East Berlin was part of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), over 177,000 people volunteered to be People’s Police Helpers.
They’d monitor the registers to make sure details of who lived where were up-to-date, and they’d generally help police keep an eye on things.
In Zionskirchstrasse we could look out from our apartment into the living rooms of several apartments opposite, as well as enjoy a full view up and down the street.
No-one seems to care, though. Curtains are rarely drawn; people live in their private spheres as if no one is watching ....
Just like Facebook.
