November 09, 2014

"Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!"


This historic challenge by U.S. President Ronald Reagan to the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in June 1987 embodied the resolution of a world determined to see the oppressive, divisive communist regime of East Germany crumble and bring about the reunification of Germany under principles of freedom.  Two years and five months after that speech, on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall, which had divided not only the city of Berlin and the country of Germany, but represented the division between the free world and the repressed states under communism, began to fall.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of when the East German government announced that citizens of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) could begin visits to West Berlin and West Germany in general.  It marks the figurative, if not literal, fall of the Berlin Wall.

While I have visited Germany many times, I have yet to visit Berlin or East Germany.  However, by serendipitous good fortune, I saw a portion of the Berlin Wall a week ago while it was on display at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville (picture above).

The wall itself evoked a mix of emotions in me: satisfaction that it was torn down, sadness that it existed for nearly thirty years, and fascination with the stories of the street artists who tagged their particular story to this portion of the wall.  Who were they?  How did the Wall affect them?  What exultation they must've experienced when the Wall finally came down!

Have you ever seen the Berlin Wall - either in Berlin or through a traveling exhibit?

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Linking up with Chasing the Donkey for #SundayTraveler!