At the same time, Wechsler was shocked by the gap between rich and poor, in particular the homeless people filling the benches of New York City’s Central Park when Wechsler visited in his first summer back in America.
“In the old days [in New York], there was much less [homelessness], and in the GDR, there was none,” Wechsler says.
Wechsler has mixed emotions about his years in East Germany, which were dominated by the repressive Stasi, the East German secret police, as well as the miseries of life behind the Iron Curtain.
If given a second chance, would Wechsler still have crossed the river?
“It’s hard to say,” he says. “What I can say is that...[the decision] made possible for me a very interesting life.”
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