In the Shadows of a Fallen Wall

Growing up, what Sanford Tweedie knew about East Germany was basically . . . nothing. West Germans were our friends; East Germans, the enemy. In 2000, somewhat better informed, Tweedie took advantage of a Fulbright Scholarship to move his family to the eastern German town of Erfurt for the academic year. Far from home and the familiar, with temporary status and a tenuous grasp of the language, he and his wife were curious to see how they would function shorn of all the rules that governed their