East and West Germany

[Singers perform “Long twenty-eight years,” a song about the Berlin Wall.]

Mr Masur: Nobody could have imagined this happening! It has been only two years since the Wall came down. Sometimes if people are under pressure, or because they are under pressure, they have very strong ties to each other and they try to help each other. Now that they are open and they are free, unfortunately, some of them cannot survive. They do not know how to handle freedom because very often freedom is challenging. If people are the wrong age, for example, they find it difficult to adjust to this new life. They are really helpless. Many fifty-year-olds are unemployed.

I talk so often about the soul, not because I am referring to religion, but because I feel that many people have lost contact with their souls. It is especially true in my country. Freedom is a bit strange; the dream of freedom was different from the reality.

Singer: I was very moved when you said that music can sometimes heal the wounds of the soul.

Mr Masur: Even if you only sing! When I was a very young boy, I needed music in that way because my family circumstances weren’t so pleasant. If I sat at my piano, I could escape. Music was my world.

That’s still the case. When I make music, everything is okay; I can have another world. If you have a talent or a gift to make other people happy, or if you have the ability in some way to help them — being a doctor, for instance — that is wonderful. But if you have no talent and no opportunity to help others, it is very hard. Very, very often now, with people in the Eastern Bloc, I see that society is being split.