In Europe the Virus Raises New Walls Between East and West

On May 20, as I neared the border with Austria, I was so stressed that I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to speak when I got to the crossing. It was my first trip out of the Czech Republic after two months of the pandemic lockdown, and I hadn’t seen my mother in all that time. She was in Vienna recovering from cancer chemotherapy and a broken ankle; I wanted to bring her home to Prague. What if I couldn’t get across to Vienna for some reason? I had medical permission for my mother to travel in case they asked. But what would I do if the border officials had some other question that was impossible to answer? What would I do if they didn’t let me through?

From a legal point of view, it was an irrational fear. The Schengen Agreement among the members of the European Union allows for passport-free movement across borders. The barbed-wire fences that separated East from the West during communism were torn down 30 years ago. It’s been a godsend for Europeans in the East. We’d lived through the nightmare of impermeable borders for decades—an era when a decision to cross into the West, to escape communism and the Soviet bloc, was one of life or death. Today, poll after poll among Central and Eastern Europeans say the free movement of peoples is among the great achievements of the EU—though many comment sardonically that it’s the only achievement.