East Berliners share local Cold War history

The town will be included in an upcoming exhibit 'Berlins - Made in the U.S.A'

The name East Berlin is what caught the museum director's attention, but the lore he found there is what held it.
When locals heard Rudy Lentz, the executive director of the German American Heritage Museum in Washington D.C., was hoping to collect some oral history at East Berlin's Red Men's Hall on Wednesday, a small group gathered and happily obliged.
They offered personal stories to Lentz's collection, regaling him with memories of presidential adviser and diplomat George F. Kennan, East Berlin's most famous resident. There were other Cold War memories too, about the influence of communism on the town's identity and even a story about how Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, stayed in town for a time.
The details of Lentz's trip to the town and the information he recorded will be part of the exhibit "Berlins - Made in the U.S.A." The opening is set for June 26 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's historic "Ich bin ein Berliner!" speech.
Lentz and two colleagues individually visited more than 10 Berlins nationwide over the past two years before he arrived in East Berlin.

Rudy Lentz, the executive director of the German-American Heritage Museum in Washington D.C., takes a photo of the front of Red Men s Hall on King Street in East Berlin. Lentz was visiting the town Wednesday to talk to residents and conduct research for an upcoming exhibit, Berlins Made in the U.S.A. (THE EVENING SUN SHANE DUNLAP)

This was the second time this month that East Berlin captured attention for its name. A German documentary, which will also air on June 26 in Germany to commemorate Kennedy's speech, features the Adams County borough as one of the many towns named after Berlin.
According to the Historical Preservation Society, the town was originally named Berlin. The "East" was added in 1827 with the establishment of a post office in order to avoid confusion with another Berlin located in Somerset County in western Pennsylvania.
"There are more than 20 altogether, but some are very small and do not have a history like East Berlin, Pennsylvania." Lentz said. "I think there was a lot of untold history and anecdotes and stories. Like we found out this morning even amongst themselves, they don't know the complete stories. So there's always something to undig, to revive, to recover."
Charles Bechtel, whose family has lived in East Berlin since roughly 1734, shared one of those anecdotes. He recalled to the group his time at Elizabethtown College during the Cold War when students and professors made criticisms about the name of his hometown. East Berlin was in the heart of communist East Germany.
Wayne Lau, who serves with Bechtel on the Founder's Day Committee to plan the town's 250th anniversary next year, shared some information about the movement following World War II to change some of the names around town that reflected German origins.

"There's a road out here called Germany Road and there's a schoolhouse named Victory schoolhouse, rather than Germany schoolhouse," Lau said. "The road still exists but the schoolhouse was renamed Victory during the war."

Museum director Rudy Lentz, left, talks with local historian, Benjamin Franklin re-enactor and Easter Berlin resident Rich Fox, right, Wednesday at the Red Men s Hall museum. By the end of his research, Lentz will have visited 12 East Berlins for his upcoming exhibit. (THE EVENING SUN SHANE DUNLAP)

Lau had also maintained a friendship with George F. Kennan, a Soviet expert during the Cold War era, when he lived in East Berlin. Kennan had expressed to Lau that he couldn't remember where he had found the money to buy his farm.
"He had wanted to live somewhere between New York and Washington. He looked in York and spent five or six days there with a realtor who kept mentioning this farm outside of East Berlin that was only 200 acres," Lau said. "So on the last day he thought 'well we'll just go out and look at it.' He liked it and so he bought."

However, the biggest reaction from the group came with Lau's stories of Svetlana Stalin, who famously defected to the United States and not so famously spent one summer in East Berlin in the early 1960s.

Museum director Rudy Lentz, left, talks with Easter Berliners about the town s history Wednesday morning at Red Men s Hall. Residents are, seated from left, Beverly Jadus, Rich Fox, Wayne Lau, Ursula Martino and Charles Bechtel. (THE EVENING SUN SHANE DUNLAP)

"She wrote about the stifling summers in Pennsylvania," Lau said. "Before she left, I remember this car pulling up in front of the store and someone got out and handed me this book. And it was personally autographed to me. I don't think she gave too many out because she was kind of a recluse."
After the meeting, the locals lingered around and swapped more stories and personal histories.
Beverly Jadus, president of the East Berlin Historical Preservation Society, organized the gathering and invited East Berlin Mayor Keith Hoffman to attend.
"The Society works so hard to promote the history and some days or months go by and you don't feel the interest and then all of a sudden you realize that there are people interested," Jadus said. "But every time you gather together people in the town and the people who have grown up here come, and you hear all these stories that you've never heard before, it's fascinating."
Lentz said he has two more cities on the agenda, bringing the total number of Berlins visited for the exhibit to 12.
"Berlins - Made in the U.S.A." will run until December 2013 and the town of East Berlin has been invited to attend.
Ich Bin Ein Berliner:The Adams County town will be featured in a German documentary about towns in America named Berlin

A German-heritage expert on JFK’s speech
The details of Rudy Lentz’s trip to East Berlin and the information he recorded will be part of the exhibit “Berlins — Made in the U.S.A.,” set to open June 26 in conjunction with the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner!” speech.
Lentz the executive director of the German-American Heritage Museum in Washington, D.C., which will present the exhibit.
Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech is often remembered for his incorrect German translation.
He attempted to say “I am a Berliner,” but instead added an extra word, turning his statement into “I am a jelly doughnut.”
“We don’t want to make fun of you,” Lentz said, “but people want to understand the spirit and the moods and the sense of communities and true people.”
Lentz went so far as to defend the much-publicized translation Kennedy chose to use.
“There is still a struggle about what that meant because there’s two linguistic differences,” Lentz said. “’Ich bin Berliner’ means ‘I am Berliner’ but he’s not a Berliner because a Berliner is born in Berlin. So, he said the right thing ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ which means ‘I feel close to the Berliners.’ So, this linguistic difference aside, it was one of the greatest speeches in history, and we tried to commemorate that.”
The exhibit will highlight the history of American towns that share a name with the German capital.
Lentz’s visit was the second time this month that East Berlin captured attention for its name.
A German documentary, which will air June 26 to commemorate Kennedy’s speech, also features the Adams County borough as one of the many towns named after Berlin.
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By LILLIAN REED