Vote Brings to Life Amerika’s Link to Democracy
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AMERIKA, East Germany — Amerika voted Sunday in its first free elections in more than 50 years.
Amerika, East Germany, that is.
Voters in this tiny Saxon village, population 131, filed into a bowling alley converted to a polling station to choose among the 24 candidates contesting the first free vote here since the 1932 elections that paved the way for Adolf Hitler’s rule.
Amerika, about 30 miles from Leipzig, got its name in 1832 when the owner of a spinning mill that still employs most of the inhabitants sold some of his land to the railway on condition that it build a station for his factory.
Some of the construction workers came from the United States, and thus the village got its name.
The village has only one tiny food store, providing just the basics. For anything else it is a 2 1/2-mile drive to the next community.
The only bar closed two years ago.
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