I remember the day the Berlin Wall came down. I was 17, it was my junior year of high school, and I was doing my homework when my father came in the room and told me to come watch the news with him.
I sat transfixed for hours watching the graffiti-covered concrete slabs come down, illuminated by camera flashes. I still remember all the people dancing and celebrating, and the ones reaching through holes in the wall to connect with people on the other side. Some people were hacking at the Wall with sledgehammers. I remember feeling a little bit scared for them. I was worried that at any minute the East German guards would change their minds and say “never mind, you can’t have this” and start shooting people. I don’t think it really sunk in that this was happening and there would be no turning back. It was all happening so fast.
The next day, Peter Jennings was standing on the Wall surrounded by happy people. He reached in the pocket of his trench coat and pulled out a chunk of the Wall that someone had given him.
My friend Claudia was living in Berlin at the time and wrote me long letters describing the atmosphere in Berlin. I think I might still have these letters somewhere. She talked about the general celebratory mood that hung over the city for weeks, and about how the subways and shops were crowded.
1989 was an exciting year in history – there was so much change happening in Poland, Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria. At the end of the year, Bush and Gorbachev declared the Cold War to be over. People of my generation were still students at the time – this gave us an unique perspective on what was happening in the world. Only a year earlier in World History classes we’d learned all about the Eastern Bloc countries. I wrote a term paper that year comparing and contrasting socialism, capitalism, and communism. A year later, everything changed – governments, borders, maps. The books had to be rewritten. How many generations get to witness this kind of history?
I can’t believe it’s been twenty years, either. It doesn’t seem like that long ago.
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