Volume 39, Number 8 · April 23, 1992
In a Former Country
By Amos Elon
In East Germany in the late Sixties I happened to be present when an English visitor created a public scene, rare at that time, by challenging a pompous official on a matter of apparent state ideology. The official was a Communist Party hack (or maybe he was just trying to make a living) and he was showing a group of Western visitors through Goethe's house in Weimar. The Englishman was a spirited old man on some kind of officially sponsored tour. I never saw him again and remembered him because at the time—Soviet and East German tanks had just rolled into Prague—even for eigners were trying to keep their mouths shut, at least in public.
Feature, 5859 words
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