Two thoughts kept drifting through my mind throughout the book. The first was the value of extended family. Had they not stood together, they would have suffered apart. They were each other's loyal support and defense, while many others became informants under the pressure. Children played a necessary part in the midst of oppression as well, for they brought normalcy and joy to the daily drudgery and duties of life.
The other thought that trailed me throughout the book was the power of the media. It controlled what the people thought through messages about how grand and glorious East Germany was in protecting its own people. They had no contact with the outside world to know any different, yet how similar, but paradoxical, it is here in America. We listen to and watch whatever we choose, but are constantly bombarded with messages that shape our thinking. We think we are free to make choices, and we are. Yet we, too, are being socially engineered by the elite who control the media.
The book was recommended to me by a friend, and I recommend it to you and its many sub-themes that run through it. It's a poignant picture of life in a country without God.
