The Women Of Europe's Dream

When I began, in my teens, to meet with German contemporaries, there was an initial reticence and discomfort. But we talked and talked and talked. There was no attempt to hide the past, but there was a burning desire to make a different future. It followed that I became an ardent Europhile.

Two decades ago, the Berlin Wall was torn asunder by jubilant crowds. Today, 10 former communist nations are fully integrated members of the European Union (EU). Were my father to reappear suddenly and I told him that Lithuania was a member state, he would stare in disbelief and wonder what I was smoking.