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Segment 25a: Introduction
25段第一部分 介紹
On August 13, 1961, as a month-old baby boy snoozed contentedly in Racine, Wisconsin,
1961年8月13日，一個剛滿月的男嬰在威斯康辛州的拉辛愜意地打著盹
that's me, the East German government started work on the Berlin Wall.
那就是我，與此同時，東德政府正開始筑起柏林墻
The Berlin Wall eventually became nine feet tall, covered with barbed wire, searchlights and guns, and guarded by dogs and elite policemen.
柏林墻最終有九英尺高，覆蓋著鐵絲網，探照燈和槍支，由狗和精英警察一起守衛
It was not constructed to keep envious West Berliners out of the socialist paradise called East Germany.
柏林墻并不是為了阻止滿懷嫉妒的西柏林人進入東德的社會主義天堂
Rather, it was built to keep East Germans and other Soviet bloc inhabitants from trickling into West Berlin and, from West Berlin into freedom.
反之，柏林墻是為了阻止東德人和其他蘇聯集團的居民潛入逃向自由的西柏林
West Berliners were isolated. The West was suitably outraged.
西柏林人被隔離起來，西柏林人對此自然義憤填膺
President Kennedy himself appeared in Berlin and declare "Ich bin ein Berliner".
肯尼迪總統自己也出現在柏林，宣布自己是一個柏林人
A Berliner, by the way, is Berlin slang for some kind of jelly roll doughnut.
順便說一句，其實柏林人這個詞的英語讀音在德語里指某種果凍甜甜圈
But in fact the wall did Communism more harm than it did good.
事實上，柏林墻給共產主義帶來的弊大于利
More than any other thing, the Wall symbolized the moral bankruptcy and outright tyranny prevailing in the Soviet Union and its client states.
最主要的弊處就在于，柏林墻代表著蘇聯及其附庸國中普遍存在的道德破產和完全專制
When the Wall came down in 1989,
1989年柏林墻的倒塌
it was a clear sign of the end for the USSR — which in fact survived the Berlin wall by just two years.
正是蘇維埃社會主義共和國聯盟終結的一個明顯征兆——事實上，柏林墻倒塌兩年后，蘇聯就解體了
