...And the Wall Came Tumbling Down

Tomorrow is the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.  I was three years old and have no personal memory of the fall of the Wall, but its historical significance is not something to be missed.  For decades, during the Cold War, the Wall kept East and West Berlin divided.  During those dark years, between 136 and 200 Germans would lose their lives in an effort to escape from the Stalinist Soviet controlled East Germany and into the West German section of the city.

On November 9th, 1989, a series of communication errors lead to the people storming across the Wall to embrace one another.  Where once, men and women faced machine guns for climbing over, instead, people danced joyously together.  Sledgehammers and other tools pecked away at the symbol of oppression that had divided a people, and even families, for generations.  It is often seen as one of the death knells of the Soviet Union.

Today the Berlin Wall's segments can be found around the world, from Germany itself to the Vatican's gardens to the Newseum in Washington D.C.  It was in the latter that I was able to see a piece of the Wall firsthand...and I must admit, for one of two times while at that museum celebrating the history of journalism, I had the impression of standing on hallowed ground (the other being the communication mast of the World Trade Center's North Tower).  Staring at the piece of the Berlin Wall made so many history lessons seem that much more real, and the sorrow of a people divided, just as clear.  I was about to move on from the Wall when a volunteer asked if I wanted a photo, so I said yes, after all, it would be good to remember a time I saw such an important part of history and to remember that unlike those who died trying to escape over it, I only saw it as a museum piece of an era best left behind, but unforgotten.