The Wall in My Backyard
East German Women in Transition
Edited by Dinah Dodds and Pam Allen-Thompson
University of Massachusetts Press
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and German unification less than a year later, East Germany entered a period of radical change. In this collection of interviews, eighteen East German women describe the excitement, chaos, and frustration of this transitional period.
Germany has undergone substantial changes since 1989, change which has particularly affected women in former East Germany. It is vitally important for the future of our society for people to hear the stories told by these women—stories of the economic, cultural, and psychological challenges brought about by unification. The Wall in My Backyard makes a valuable contribution to the discussion of the role of women in German society and in other countries.'—Sabine Bergmann-Pohl, Deputy Secretary of Health, member of the unified German Parliament, the Bundestag, and former president of East Germany's first freely elected parliament, the Volkskammer
'An extremely useful contribution to our knowledge of the complex and extraordinary process of German reunification. In allowing these eighteen East German women to speak for themselves, Dodds and Allen-Thompson have gone beyond the received wisdom that women were the primary victims of the German Democratic Republic's collapse and have shown a much more vibrant and exciting process of transformation full not only of discrimination and unemployment but also of a new and heady freedom—as well as new risks and insecurities.'—Stephen Brockmann, Carnegie Mellon University
'With this book, Dodds and Allen-Thompson join the growing group of writers whose work is helping is to understand the lives of East European women under communism. More often than not, it is from those who have lived through a period of cultural upheaval that we learn what is more nearly enduring for women. These moving interviews help us think what we want to keep and what we want to change for ourselves and our daughters.'—Celia Morris, Author of Fanny Wright: Rebel in America and Bearing Witness: Sexual Harassment and Beyond—Everywoman's Story
'These candid interviews with 18 East German women about life before and after unification constitute a fascinating oral history of everyday lives in the former GDR.'—Ms.
'Dinah Dodds and Pam Allen-Thompson's excellent volume is successful in capturing another landmark in the lives of East German women.'—Women in German Newsletter
Dinah Dodds is professor of German at Lewis and Clark College. Pam Allen-Thompson is research professor of women's studies and the University of Toledo.
