[PRCo] Re: OT - Dresden, Germany

[Boris Cefer]

I knew you would appreciate something from the past. I do not believe in a 
good future but good memories from the past push me forward!

B

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Schneider" <fwschneider at comcast.net>
To: <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 03, 2007 9:46 PM
Subject: [PRCo] Re: OT - Dresden, Germany


Vielen Dank, Herr Cefer.   Sie hilfen mich meinen Urlauben in Dresden
zu erinern.

On my first of several trips to Dresen, before the communists were
completely out of power, a gentleman stopped me in the parking lot of
the main train station and attempted to strike up a conversation.
It was late in the day.  Not being in a mood at the time to struggle
with German, I responded, "Mein Deutsch ist nichtg sehr gut.   Konnen
Sie auf English sprechen?"   The man responded in very crisp British
English, "As a matter of fact, yes I can."   I turned out that he had
an uncle in Britain and during World War II had gone to live with the
uncle rather than stay in Germany.   He want on for ten minutes to
regale Dick Lloyd and me about how wonderful Dresden had been in the
1930s, before the fire storm destroyed all semblance of the past in
1945.

I've forgotten whether Dresden was the Deutsche Demokratische
Republik's second or third largest city.   I do remember it seemed to
have fallen arches when I first saw it.    Sadly the DDR was the
industrial powerhouse for all of the eastern bloc nations after World
War II but it still didn't produce the capital needed to allow the
nation to look anything like the west.  One got the feeling at the
end of communism that you could drop 50,000 euros in every house in
repairs and not even know where you put it.   And yet the DDR was
modern compared to the other countries.   The Bulgarians were still
farming with horses.

Again, Boris, and to quote Bob Hope, "Thanks for the Memories."   I
did see two Trabant automobiles in Budapest a week ago (like the one
in the film clip) and one was actually moving.   The other had the
fender held on with duct tape.

Fred Schneider