Zusammenfassung

Reading the novel Olli aus Ossiland provided me with a new perspective on life in East Germany. In history class, personal life behind the events is rarely covered; there simply is not enough time. Though with this novel, the reader catches a glimpse into the made-up life of teenager Olli Bauer and his journey to discover more about himself and the vast new world around him. The parallism between what his life was like prior to the wall coming down and afterwards is shocking. Unemployement and new people flooded into Olli's previously isolated world. His perspective on the new challenges allows the reader to witness how different life in East Germany was from the rest of the world. Olli is stunned and intrigued by the life people around the world had accepted as "normal". His shock at how the "nice" restaurant he was going to work at served mainly pre-frozen foods such as french fries amused me, because I see that almost everywhere I look here. This event was consistant with the happenings we discussed in class with the East Germans experiencing new things that were never available to them before. Another similarity to what we discussed in class was that families were seperated by the wall. Sabine's father had gotten himself out of the East but was not able to come back for his family. The sad thing is many families were seperated by the borders. This novel may have been short in length, but it provided me with knowledge and a new perspective concerning East German life after the wall fell.