The radically redrawn borders of Germany and much of Europe after World War II forced my parents to flee their Soviet-occupied homelands to seek freedom and opportunity in West Germany, and later in the United States. Although my family has no direct connection to Berlin, I saw its stark division as a reminder and a concentrated symbol of the forces that drove my parents west to become American citizens.

In September of 1974, I traveled to West Berlin. It was a bright island of liberty surrounded by a dull gray wall, built not for its protection but to ensure its isolation. Fascinated by such an untenable design, I sought to record in photographs what I might find in such a historically rare circumstance. I spent a month walking the streets of Berlin in search of imagery (taking pictures) on both sides of the Wall. I was not unbiased in my feelings toward Communist East Germany, yet I tried to avoid making political statements in favor of maintaining a documentary style.

After more than three decades of German reunification, the almost complete disappearance of the Wall has produced an entirely different Berlin. These photographs are now a historical record: a visual account of opposing ideologies in precarious accommodation.