In Honor of the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall

November 9, 1989.

I was not alive then, but the history books tell me enough to make me feel as if I was. It was the day freedom and democracy changed the world and millions of lives through the literal and metaphorical tearing down of a wall.

Literally, the Berlin Wall - the wall separating the two sections of Germany, one democratic and the other communist. Separating men, women, and children from their loved ones, separating friends, separating lives. Metaphorically, the wall of hatred and fear and ignorance - the wall that disunited a people through political means, the wall that stood smugly as a despicable symbol of the Cold War and the tensions it created, infiltrating the very mindset of both the West and East.

But on November 9, 1989, all of this changed, bringing about a new revolution catapulting the breakdown of the Soviet Union and a dramatic push towards democracy and freedom. Ignorance banished, families united, and acceptance and warm feelings swirling in the air.

Here are some first-hand accounts of life before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall:

"I instantly got goose bumps all over my body just seeing the people climb over the wall. They were jumping for joy and there were so many families reunited and it was one of the best feelings in the world. I was so happy for these people as they would be able to discover the freedom that they had been longing for. The next day I went with my parents and my brother to the Brandenburg Gate to see and let me tell you these people had packed everything they could fit in there car to start a new life. I remember there was a man standing there giving flowers to each person that drove through the opening and people were cheering as families were reunited. You could just feel the emotions."

"The man, like so many other Berliners, had been working in West Berlin on the night of August 13, 1961, the night the wall went up. He simply couldn’t get back to his family. Now, nine years later, he was there to see them on Easter...But on this Easter morning, as our redshirted German neighbor peered through big binoculars, two women on the east side came down the street toward us pushing baby carriages. They were far away and I could see that they stopped, picked the babies up and held them up in the air. The redshirted guy stared through the binoculars at them. My father had learned that the women were his wife and his daughter and the babies were his grandchildren. He had never seen them any other way. They held the squirming children up in the air and then the man saw something move in the distance and he signaled them. The women put the children in the carriages and they were gone. A moment later an East German police car drove by.

And those were the bad guys?"

"When I heard that news it made me think back to one particular incident where I learned that even the Communists were people, forgive me if I share:

It was 1972. Armed with my dad's binoculars I humped through the woods behind the army apts. in Dueppel. The woods gave way to a small clearing and then the wall. One of those observation platforms was there - not too far away from the guard tower. We kids used to play army (US vs. Soviets) in those woods and we knew our way around pretty well. We'd frequently go to the wall and peer over.

Anyway - so there I was on the tower. Already under observation from the guard tower. You know - you did it too - your binocs looking up at them, they looking back at you across the no man's land of death.

So I'm peering up. The vopo and the russian were peering back at me through their binocs. We looked at each other for a bit and I flashed a peace sign up at them. (Hey - it was the 70's!). What amazed me was first how they just looked back - expressionless. then the fun part..

The vopo got bored and looked away, putting his binocs down around his neck. The russian (amazing how military kids learn to tell uniforms)...kept watching. then he looked away to check on the vopo - and on the side of his body away from the vopo - he very quickly flashed a peace sign back at me.

As a young person, that was one of those human moments when I started to realize - hey - people are just like us.....it was a bold and risky thing for the soldier to do...but he totally made my day and gave me a memory to last a life time...."

Taken from: http://aoshs.wichita.edu/WallStories.htm

More information and images:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2009/autumn.of.change/berlin.wall/

http://www.google.com/berlinwall09.html

I'll leave you with a question, though:

We are so lucky to have so much freedom in our lives, relative to other situations in the past. How far do you think we have come? What have we done with it, if anything? Do you believe we have used this freedom wisely? In what ways should we limit freedom? Should we? Where does that put us as a democracy?