Segment 25a: Introduction
25段第一部分:简介
On August 13th 1961, as a month old baby boy snoozed contentedly in Roisin Wisconsin, that's me.
在1961年8月31日,在威斯康辛州的罗新当时这个一个月大的婴儿心满意足地打着盹,那就是我
The East German government started work on the Berlin wall,
东德政府开始着手解决建立柏林墙
the wall eventually became 9 feet tall, covered with barbed wire, searchlights and guns and guarded by dogs and elite policemen.
这座墙最后有9英尺高,上面由电网覆盖,还有探照灯,枪,由狗和精兵守卫
It was not constructed to keep envious West Berliners out of the socialist paradise called East Germany,
它的修建不是为了将嫉妒的西柏林人挡在叫做东德的社会主义天堂外
rather it was built to keep East Germans and other Soviet Bloc inhabitants from trickling in to West Berlin and from West Berlin in to freedom.
而不是为了防止东德人和苏联集团的人民混进西柏林逃向自由的西柏林
West Berliners were isolated, the west was suitably outraged,
西柏林人被孤立了,西方当然地被激怒了
President Kennedy himself appeared and declared "Ich bin ein Berliner", a Berliner by the way is Berlin slang for some kind of jelly roll doughnut.
肯尼迪总统亲自出现,宣布"我们是柏林人",柏林人在柏林的俚语中说的是一种果冻多纳圈
But in fact the wall did communism more harm than it did good,
但事实上这座墙对于共产主义来说弊大于利
more than any other thing the wall symbolised a moral bankruptcy and outright tyranny prevailing in the Soviet Union and its client states.
和其他事物相比,这座墙最能象征一种道义上的破产和彻底的暴政在苏联和其附庸国盛行
When the wall came down in 1989, it was a clear sign of the end for the USSR which in fact survived the Berlin wall by just two years.
当柏林墙于1989年倒塌时,作为苏联结束的一个很明确的标志,实际上,苏联在柏林墙倒后仅维持了两年