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Segment 25a: Introduction
25段第一部分 介绍
On August 13, 1961, as a month-old baby boy snoozed contentedly in Racine, Wisconsin,
1961年8月13日，一个刚满月的男婴在威斯康辛州的拉辛惬意地打着盹
that's me, the East German government started work on the Berlin Wall.
那就是我，与此同时，东德政府正开始筑起柏林墙
The Berlin Wall eventually became nine feet tall, covered with barbed wire, searchlights and guns, and guarded by dogs and elite policemen.
柏林墙最终有九英尺高，覆盖着铁丝网，探照灯和枪支，由狗和精英警察一起守卫
It was not constructed to keep envious West Berliners out of the socialist paradise called East Germany.
柏林墙并不是为了阻止满怀嫉妒的西柏林人进入东德的社会主义天堂
Rather, it was built to keep East Germans and other Soviet bloc inhabitants from trickling into West Berlin and, from West Berlin into freedom.
反之，柏林墙是为了阻止东德人和其他苏联集团的居民潜入逃向自由的西柏林
West Berliners were isolated. The West was suitably outraged.
西柏林人被隔离起来，西柏林人对此自然义愤填膺
President Kennedy himself appeared in Berlin and declare "Ich bin ein Berliner".
肯尼迪总统自己也出现在柏林，宣布自己是一个柏林人
A Berliner, by the way, is Berlin slang for some kind of jelly roll doughnut.
顺便说一句，其实柏林人这个词的英语读音在德语里指某种果冻甜甜圈
But in fact the wall did Communism more harm than it did good.
事实上，柏林墙给共产主义带来的弊大于利
More than any other thing, the Wall symbolized the moral bankruptcy and outright tyranny prevailing in the Soviet Union and its client states.
最主要的弊处就在于，柏林墙代表着苏联及其附庸国中普遍存在的道德破产和完全专制
When the Wall came down in 1989,
1989年柏林墙的倒塌
it was a clear sign of the end for the USSR — which in fact survived the Berlin wall by just two years.
正是苏维埃社会主义共和国联盟终结的一个明显征兆——事实上，柏林墙倒塌两年后，苏联就解体了
