St Francis de Sales High School - Accolade Yearbook (Toledo, OH)

Page 11 text:

That Gives Life to Matter Death is a curtain stifling that from which the spirit has fled The wall of infamy, complete with Wasser- werfer (water cannon), cuts in half a city of the western world. Berlin, cosmopolitan and sophisti- cated, is the scene of a spectacle which even a world used to surprises gapes at with shock, dis- belief and fear. The Communist paradise must be ringed with stone and barbed wire to keep the beatified in their heaven. This must surely be some kind of Classic of the Absurd . In trying to pinpxDint the cause of this phenom- enon it is to the philosophy of histon, ' the search will lead us. The dialectic of Mar.xist-Leninism is oriented to matter and this gives to their philosophy a rigidity Western thought does not share. For the Soviet mind, all the ramifications of matter: distri- bution, agriculture, production and technology play the predominant role in historical processes. They are the masters, not the slaves and the tools of free men in a free society. We of the Western World hold that human spirit and human will are the real fashioners of history and human des- tiny. When Mr. Krushchev says, History is on our side, we will bury you , we are not impressed. History is created, not a blind force which con- trols us. So we have the Wall, a chunk of matter which hopes to keep its prisoners of paradise uncontam- inated from what Communism truly fears — ideas, either from within or without. The water cannon, a powerful weapon used by East Berlin police to drive off the curious from West Berlin. I

Page 10 text:

An East Berlin worker reinforces harhed wire on The Wall. It Is the Spirit Human heings, close and yet so far apart. Notice the military, the characterist ic sign of a totalitarian state. With looks of dishelief and shock, American visitors stare through cruel harhed wire at the barrenness of the police state.

Page 12 text:

Justice Is the Life Blood of Christianity A general view of the Wall which cuts throrigh Berlin like a twisting serpent spitting forth its poisonous venom. Behind the Wall are steel tank traps. Notice the barrenness of the other side so indicative of the emptiness of Communist philosophy.