My dad and I went to East Berlin in 1980. We had changed some West German Marks into East German Marks at the airport at a rate of 5:1. 1 West German Mark bought 5 East German ones.

We went through the famous Checkpoint Charlie. We filled out forms and wrapped them around our passports and shoved them through a slot. Very strange experience watching your passport sliding out of sight in East Berlin.

Well, my dad put on the form that we had 50 East German Marks where it said to declare any currency. Big mistake! You can not be honest in a despotic country. We were held there for hours, we couldn’t leave because they had our passports.

Eventually they came and had my dad sign a report (all in German) saying that we were caught knowingly and illegally smuggling East German money back into East Germany, and that we gratefully accepted that our money be confiscated rather than 5 years at hard labor. When we signed that we were given our passports back and allowed to enter.

On the East German side we also had to exchange a mandatory amount of money, but here on the East German side the exchange rate between East and West German Marks was 1:1, not 5:1 as elsewhere in the world.

So we walked the empty streets and went into a ‘store’ where you could order things. Wrist watches, calculators, even a car. Everything had Cyrillic and NOTHING was for sale there. Everything in the cases were empty shell mockups.

Next we went looking for something to eat. We found a restaurant and read the menu. The only other patrons in the place were obviously West German businessmen.

“May I have the beef?” “We don’t have beef.” “How about the pork?” “We don’t have pork.” “Alright, I’ll have the fish.” “We don’t have fish.” “Is there anything on the menu that you do have?” “Chicken, we have chicken.”

After we place our order the other patrons express an interest in us, being a novel experience. They told us that they always come to East Berlin for lunch because the food is so cheap on the other side. Sure enough, the whole lunch was about 50 cents.

My dad told them about our adventure at the border crossing and our money being confiscated. They all laughed and joked about smuggling money, “Hans here hides it in his sock!” The waitstaff were extremely uncomfortable with these open admissions to money smuggling….

We went back to the West side and walked along the wall. We climbed up onto an observation platform to look at the Brandenburg Gate. Since it was on the Eastern side, the West had built these platforms so that you could see over the wall.

Well the East had built platforms too, but they were only for East German army men to keep watch on the West. My dad noticed that they were watching us with binoculars. So we started playing a game with them. My dad would raise his camera and point it at them and they would drop to the ground so they wouldn’t be seen in a photo.

Hahaha, good times.