MashGet

Reporting from Berlin - The world turned upside down when Katrin Geissler was born, and it turned upside down again when she gave birth to her son, Valentin.

They made their appearances in 1961 and 1989 -- bookends of the Berlin Wall. Twenty-eight years apart, mother and son both grew up in Berlin, but they might as well have lived on different planets.

Barely a month after Katrin was born on July 2, 1961, the communist-run eastern half of Berlin began erecting a barrier, block by concrete block, until, like a scar, it zigzagged through the city, separating west from east, capitalism from communism, freedom from totalitarianism, family from family.