Slavenka Drakulić - A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism

In saying all this, what am I actually proposing for you to do?

First and foremost, I ask you to make your decision quickly, whatever it might be. I am not suggesting you suspend the trial, although clearly I would prefer this solution as the wisest. I think I have presented my arguments for this option, but you may find them inadequate and decide for the trial to go on. If so, please, do it! But order the court to proceed quickly. The General is an old and very frail man. In my opinion, if you don’t speed it up, he has no chance of seeing the end of the trial. It is my worst nightmare that he will die before the trial is over. Of course I would be devastated by his passing; I am his pet after all. But his death would present society with another problem: If you allow it to happen, there won’t be any closure for society—and that is what is expected of his trial, to close the chapter on Communism. You know what happened with the Slobodan Milošević case in the Hague? Not that I compare these two; in my opinion there is no comparison between the General—a tragic believer in Communism who made a pact with the devil in good faith—and an opportunistic manipulator, a thug, and a war criminal. Milošević died way before his trial was over. And because of that, the Serbs were never confronted with their responsibility for the wars in the Balkans. Denial rules in Serbia today; it is as if he and his murderous nationalist politics were never on trial. No truth, no justice, no closure or catharsis… nothing.

For the sake of Poland, I would like you to avoid this happening here! Your responsibility is great and I urge you to be aware of it. Even Napoleon agrees with me on this, although I am not sure that he understands the problem at all.

With this appeal, I salute you in the hope that you will not disregard my letter just because I was fortunate enough to be born a cat, and not a human being.

Dear Members of the Learned Society, Distinguished Guests,

Many, many generations of Moles ago, near the place where we are right now, there stood a massive concrete structure called the Berlin Wall. The well-known Mole Legend tells us that it was erected at several periods during ancient times, starting in anno domini 1961. When it was finished in anno domini 1975, it was 3.6 meters high and 140 kilometers long. As a collector of old Legends, and being interested in archaeology, I was curious to find out how much truth (if any) this Legend contained. For example, I find it particularly interesting that Men used to dig tunnels under this very Wall, as if they were Moles themselves. Was this only an invention of our ancestors? Apparently one such tunnel is said to have been 145 meters long—an admirable achievement and length, even by our standards. A Mole like me would need some seven to ten days to dig it, but then it would not be 70 centimeters high, as this one supposedly was. We Moles don’t need such high passages, as we would call them, because, quite obviously, we are much smaller than Men. Also, it was not the habit of us Moles to “escape” from one side of the then existing Wall to the other, which, according to the Legend, was evidently what triggered the digging of the tunnel in the first place. Living in the Underland, even then we Moles used to move everywhere, politely greeting our neighbors from what Men from the Overland used to call the “Other Side.” Of course, we never cared much about their different sides, but while investigating this part of the Legend about the tunnel, I slowly came to realize why they did. Men did not descend into our world without a reason.

Why did this long tunnel fascinate us Moles? I guess that we Underland creatures felt some kind of solidarity, even pity, because to dig with clumsily built bodies and without proper tools to make up for such a shortcoming must have been an exhausting job. Moles are by nature equipped for such work; we have paws adapted for digging. But poor Men must rely upon various kinds of substitute paws, like shovels and a variety of frightening, noisy machines that—for the very specific reason of secrecy—were not available to those who dug the legendary tunnel under the Wall. It had to be dug by hand, and therefore our forefathers must have felt sorry and tried to help Men by digging in front of them, making the soil more porous—or so the Legend goes.

Allegedly, Men started to dig this tunnel in anno domini 1964, soon after the Berlin Wall was erected. Except that it was not a concrete Wall right away, but a wall made out of barbed wire. As you know, normally, when we hear people digging, we run away. They produce vibrations that are very disturbing to us. Since we don’t see very well, we are very oversensitive to sounds. We are used to silence, and to the ordinary sounds of Overland life, which we experience as a dull and hushed noise. But on that occasion the sound of their digging was almost as inaudible as ours—although, in my experience, Men are too prone to chat—and the Moles were hardly disturbed by it. I guess that our old ones were grateful for that. If I remember correctly what I was told as a youngster, and I believe that I do, the entrance into the tunnel was in a backyard toilet in the then Eastern part of Berlin. One had to descend to a depth of twelve meters! The exit hole was in the cellar of a former bakery in Bernauer Strasse, situated on the Western side. My grandma told me she heard that Moles from the surroundings would come together in order to marvel at the diggers and their commitment, while they were busy filling push-carts with earth and then taking them up to the cellar and emptying them there. According to these Moles, it took the diggers six long months to accomplish this admirable job!

It was particularly tough when the tunnel was finished and the first few people went down in order to make their “escape.” If they are not miners, Men do not go down to the Underland, and when they must, their first reaction is to panic. We know that feeling from another kind of experience—from ending up there in the Overland by mistake. It happened to me once when I thrust my head out in the wrong place—actually, in an excavation in the middle of a street with heavy traffic. I just popped out for a moment, and was immediately blinded by sunlight and deafened by the sounds of the passing cars. I still remember what a shock it was; it took me days to recover from it. I imagine that these Men descending to our Underland must have felt something similar. Passing through that tunnel must have been an extremely traumatic experience for every single one of them. Men in general are very dependent upon their eyesight; in the tunnel they could not see anything, so they had to carry some sort of light-casting device. They were afraid of suffocating, and their hearts were beating too fast. In some places they had to crawl almost like snakes, which to Moles witnessing the scene must have looked funny. There is a story about one old Man, probably the oldest in the group, who evidently suffered from claustrophobia. He fainted and had to be carried back to the toilet. But in spite of this unpleasant accident, he tried once more and succeeded, so big was his wish to leave. Another person had a heart problem and, in the middle of the tunnel, had an attack and thought that he would die there, underground. He started to yell and cry. Others in the group were petrified, fearing that guards posted along the Wall to prevent just such events would hear him. As they had advanced too far and there was no way back (Too risky? Too complicated? I do not know, but it was impossible for this reason or another.) one of the escapees put his hand over the sick Man’s mouth to prevent him from yelling. He almost killed his suffering companion. Evidently, the escapees were ready to sacrifice this unfortunate person’s life in order to save the group. If their attempt to escape had been discovered, they would have all gone to jail for many years.