Everyday life in a divided city

Not only Berlin, but also several smaller cities and villages in central Europe were divided by a state border in the 20th century. Signed in 1920, the Treaty of Trianon meant that part of the city of Sátoraljaújhely, which today belongs to Hungary, passed into the hands of former Czechoslovakia [now Slovakia] and was renamed Slovenské Nové Mesto. "The mayor, Ján Kalinic, can't speak a word of Hungarian, but he can't wait until the border disappears because then the children of the city will at last be able to go to school unaccompanied and without their passports," János Irházi reports. "The border crossing point still makes you think of Berlin when the Wall was still there: the border runs down the middle of a street and can only be crossed by foot and during the day... Three Hungarian and two Slovakian villages cooperated in the modernisation and expansion of the canal system. The divided city has also made an attempt at trans-border disaster control. When Sátoraljaújhely was cut off from the outside world by snow Slovaks came to clear it away."

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