Ascension Day – In a Very Different Country at a Very Different Time

Today is Ascension Day, which commemorates Jesus Christ's ascension into heaven.  The date varies from year to year, because it is 40 days after Easter (counting Easter as day one).  It is, therefore, always on a Thursday.  And this year it is on May 9.

In some countries Ascension Day is a public holiday.  Germany is one of those.  Which brings back a memory from an Ascension Day 42 years ago.  We had been driving around East Germany for four days.  It was interesting.  As I said at the time, it was not really a vacation; it was an education.

In any case, we were leaving East Germany on a Thursday.  As we came to the border crossing, to have our luggage and car inspected before we left East Germany, we noticed a long line of cars backed up on the other side of the border, to enter East Germany from the West.  We were a little confused.  It was, after all, a Thursday.  Then we realized it was Ascension, a holiday in West Germany.  The West Germans were taking the opportunity to drive into the East to visit friends and relatives on the other side of the Wall.  And the East German government was taking the opportunity to force all those West Germans to exchange 40 West German Deutschmarks for 40 East German Marks.

Little did we realize, on that Ascension Day in 1982, that this tradition of crossing a highly fortified border and exchanging valuable money for worthless money in order to visit a few friends and relatives. would disappear seven and one-half years later, along with the country that created it.