Word: berlins
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Many of the refugees apparently reached West Germany after flying from Sri Lanka to East Berlin and then crossing legally into West Berlin. They then fled West Germany because they were worried that authorities would reject their applications for asylum. Since 1949 Bonn has accepted any foreigner "persecuted on political grounds" in his native land. This lenient policy has led more than 37,000 Sri Lankans to pour into the country since 1980. The flood has provoked racial conflicts and calls for stricter immigration laws; new arrivals meet rising hostility. At the same time, rumors spreading through Tamil communities...
...result has been severe overcrowding. In desperation, West Berlin officials have commandeered a soccer field in the district of Neukolln and erected tents to accommodate the overflow. They have repeatedly demanded that their Eastern counterparts take steps to stop the traffic. But East Berlin, which earns valuable hard currency from selling airplane tickets to the refugees, contends that it is up to the Western allied forces, which still occupy West Berlin, to apply passport controls on their side. The allies refuse to do that on the grounds that it would amount to recognition of the boundary that divides...
Despite such frictions, many Berliners still harbor a dream that one day their city will again be whole. The wish is expressed openly on the Western side. "When the Wall was built, no one believed that the city would remain divided forever," says President Von Weizsacker. "That the Wall remains after 25 years is probably the most important proof of the fact that our feelings of belonging together are as strong today as in the past." On the Eastern side, officials insist that the "German question" is closed forever and denounce any suggestion of reunification. But the longing...
...cities will certainly not be unified anytime soon. West Berliners had hoped that next year, when the city celebrates its 750th anniversary, the two sides might enjoy some joint merrymaking. But East Berlin authorities have made it clear that they have no interest in such cooperation. "It's the anniversary celebration of a divorced couple," quips a senior West Berlin planner. Still, the physical barrier has failed to trample the yearning for unity on both sides. When West Germany scored its second goal in the World Cup soccer finals last June, a volley of flares and rockets lit the East...
Travel broadens the horizons. A glance at a Berlin telephone book reveals Ottos everywhere, but hardly any Kimberlys. Evelyn Waugh periodically had to reassure Americans that he was not a woman and that Evelyn was quite a common name for boys in England. Or as Peter Lorre whined in Beat the Devil, "In Chile the name of O'Hara is . . . a tip-top name. Many Germans in Chile have come to be called O'Hara...