SURVIVING THE WALL : Fall of Communism Leads to New Life at Northridge

It separated him from another way of life, the Wall did.

It was vast, imposing and a little mysterious.

Eckhard Walter knew nothing of what happened on the other side, the West side. As a youth, he was only familiar with life in East Berlin.

“Our life was going to school, study and maybe get a job,” said Walter, a 6-foot-10 volleyball player from Germany who will play for Cal State Northridge next season if he passes two classes.

“There were not that many choices. There were zones you were not allowed to step into or they would arrest you or shoot you. A lot of people were shot trying to escape. That was it. I didn’t know any other way.”

Walter, a 20-year-old freshman, came to America three months ago after serving a year in the German army, a mandatory requirement of all citizens.

He remembers growing up in East Berlin, when there was such a thing.

Because his father was a police officer and his mother was a state social worker, his family’s whereabouts were sometimes monitored by East German officials.

Walter’s fiancee, Laura Szymanski, who came to America with Walter and plays for the Northridge women’s volleyball team, also remembered life in the former communist state. Her family drew attention because it had relatives in West Germany.

“People checked on us, what we were eating, who we were talking to, where we traveled to,” Szymanski said.

Then came November 1989.

The dissolution of communism in Germany. The fall of the Berlin Wall.

“We could travel to wherever we wanted to,” Walter said. “They lived in another way that we lived. They had more choices in everything.”

Said Szymanski: “I remember the celebration. I didn’t really realize what they were happy about. I didn’t understand the politics of it. It was just a big celebration.”

Years later, one thing has become clear to Syzmanski: “If the Wall didn’t come down, we wouldn’t be here in America.”

Walter, who was 11 at the time, couldn’t have fathomed how his life would change with the events that unfolded.

He and Szymanski, whom he met almost four years ago at a German club volleyball tournament, decided two years ago to play for a university in the United States, a decision that would have been impossible in the former East Germany.

Walter heard about Northridge from Oliver Heitmann, a fellow German who was a second-team All-American at Northridge in 1994. Heitmann, who is now back in Germany, played club volleyball with Walter.

Walter still isn’t eligible to play volleyball for Northridge.

He only recently passed the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and could only enroll in Northridge extension classes this semester. He must get at least a C in astronomy and music classes--he said he is currently getting an A and B, respectively--in order to enroll as a full-time student in the second semester and be eligible to play.

Szymanski passed the TOEFL before Walter and, consequently, her eligibility was never an issue.

Good thing for the Northridge women’s team, which plays Northern Arizona (17-10) in a first-round match of the Big Sky Conference Championship on Friday.

The 6-foot Szymanski averages 4.65 kills per game for the Matadors (13-10). The school season record is 4.75.