Segment 25a: Introduction
25段第一部分:簡介
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,在威斯康辛州的羅新當時這個一個月大的嬰兒心滿意足地打著盹,那就是我
The East German government started work on the Berlin wall,
東德政府開始著手解決建立柏林墻
the wall eventually became 9 feet tall, covered with barbed wire, searchlights and guns and guarded by dogs and elite policemen.
這座墻最后有9英尺高,上面由電網覆蓋,還有探照燈,槍,由狗和精兵守衛
It was not constructed to keep envious West Berliners out of the socialist paradise called East Germany,
它的修建不是為了將嫉妒的西柏林人擋在叫做東德的社會主義天堂外
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.
而不是為了防止東德人和蘇聯集團的人民混進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,西方當然地被激怒了
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.
肯尼迪總統親自出現,宣布"我們是柏林人",柏林人在柏林的俚語中說的是一種果凍多納圈
But in fact the wall did communism more harm than it did good,
但事實上這座墻對于共產主義來說弊大于利
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,這座墻最能象征一種道義上的破產和徹底的暴政在蘇聯和其附庸國盛行
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.
當柏林墻于1989年倒塌時,作為蘇聯結束的一個很明確的標志,實際上,蘇聯在柏林墻倒后僅維持了兩年