Remembering a Divided City: Crafting Networks of Solidarity and Friendship in the Cold War

Abstract

From 1984-1987, Malabika Chattopadhyay, an activist from the Communist Party of India (CPI) worked in East Berlin, GDR as a representative of the Asian Commission of the Women’s International Democratic Federation, an international women’s organization. Through her memoir of this time, Biswaloker Ahvane (Call of the World) (2012)— this paper will trace her presence as a flâneuse in the various neighbourhoods of East Berlin, her travels to West Berlin, her encounter with the inhabitants and the different cultures of the two sides which often reaffirmed or even contradicted her existing vision of socialism and Cold War borders. Completely alone and removed from her local ground of activism, the divided Berlin became a resource for her to rekindle activist networks as well as to craft new connections. She writes about crossing the wall every week to visit her Indian friends and comrades in West Berlin and the objects she often carried with her. Gradually, her house in East Berlin became a meeting point for students and activists from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Middle East or even East and West Germany. Her work with the WIDF also led her to develop friendships with women from all over the world, especially with a South African delegate, Mittah Seperepere. Using private photographs and oral history, the paper will also explore traces of the everyday practice of these South-South friendships and networks which, forged across the divided city, were both personal and political.