They say history repeats itself, and none is more similar to what's happening in Ukraine right now than the eleven-month-long Berlin Airlift when Soviet forces blockaded rail, road, and water access to Allied-controlled areas of Berlin from 24 June 1948 to 12 May 1949.
I, together with my mother and three sisters, was amongst the 48,000 people that were airlifted out of Berlin during the Russian Blockade. Ours was a freight plane that had landed tons of coal. As soon as the coal had been unloaded, we were flown out to a new life in the West.
That was in 1949. Sixteen years later, I made another escape but you already know about that one because I'm still here to tell the tale.
