I was on my own this time, having lost touch with most of my college friends who made the trip the last time. I had David’s number and called him, but he was recently married and couldn’t come with me, but I quickly made new friends and, since this was their first time visiting Germany, they saw everything in a more carefree way, unencumbered by memories of a divided country.
By the time we got to Berlin, I was amazed at how everything had changed with the wall gone, and the enterprising locals had set up tables on both sides of Brandenburg Gate, hawking everything from authentic Soviet-era hats, badges, and uniforms, to “certified” chunks of the Berlin Wall mounted on plaques and frames. A good deal of the wall had come down, but a short walk brought us to a place where the wall still stood, and here old men were renting hammers and chisels so we could take home a piece of the action.
I must admit that I succumbed to this gimmick on a purely visceral level, for I could in some small way feel like I was a part of that glorious night of November 9, 1989, as I stood in Berlin with a hammer and chisel. As I chopped away at the wall where graffiti covered most of the concrete, I got a chunk off about the size of a baseball.
Another tourist a few feet away from me managed to yank a complete brick out of the wall. He rubbed his hand over it to remove the dust and debris and walked away with it very contentedly. I thought about that old Pink Floyd song, and looked down at the piece I had in my hand. Satisfied with that, I put it in my pocket and I still have it to this day, kept in a special box labeled “Berlin Wall 1990.”
As we walked around town, there was such an overwhelming euphoria and a true feeling of freedom. I passed near where I had seen those boys sitting on the steps in the rain years ago, and there were teenagers standing there holding a basketball and dressed ostensibly like American teens in jeans, sneakers, and backwards baseball caps. Freedom indeed had come to East Berlin.
I traveled to other places in Eastern Europe that summer of 1990, and I encountered much of the same excitement and saw people reveling in the sun openly, literally laughing and dancing in the streets. Buskers could be found in all the big cities like Dresden, Prague, and Budapest, and other street performers filled the squares with colorful entertainment. Also, American products were being advertised everywhere, as the move toward the West came complete with Marlboro cigarettes, Budweiser beer, and McDonald’s hamburgers.
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
Or not...
Anyway, I was trying to say what a good article this is, Victor. Thanks.
It also raised a sense of ironic symmetry as we see our current government here in the US building walls between the classes and races and singling groups and individuals out for ostracization. The Stasi aren't here yet, but I find it even more troubling that the current administration has become so friendly with the transnational socialist elite who include many of the former apparatchiks of the eastern bloc.
Dave
2 - Baronius
Victor - Great writing. I actually welled up thinking about those days.
3 - Deano
Well done Victor!
4 - Victor Lana
Thanks for the comments. It was an amazing time. I just hope true "freedom" is never taken for granted, because walls tend to go up when that happens.
5 - Ruvy
You wrote an excellent article, Victor, drawing upon well evoked emotions.
I understand why this would be meaningful to you, the coming down of this wall, given that your mother was of German descent.
What is meaningful to me in a minor way is that it occurred on the 51st anniversary (by the Christian calendar) of Kristallnacht. Had it taken place on the 51st anniversary by the Hebrew calendar, I'd pay more attention to it - there would be something to seriously look for in terms of significance. That is not meant as an insult - that is simply how I look at time.
6 - Victor Lana
Ruvy, I realized that Kristallnacht occurred on the same day only after I submitted the article. It is ironic that this moment to advance freedom happened on the same night when the Nazis did everything they could to crush freedom in 1938.
7 - Callenda
Victor, good article. I felt like I see what you saw with my own eyes.
I remember the fall of the Wall as today, eventhough I was really young when it happened. I'm still not closed on my feelings about it. Whas it good or whas it bad? From one side, its was the beginning of freedom in everything: what you think, eat, drink, which music you listen and what you wear. From another side it was the beginning of Soviet Union end and, what I thought that time, the beginning of democracy. I was born and raised in the Baltic States... People of different nationalities were living in peace during Soviet Union, but after Berlin Wall and Soviet Union Fall the Baltic people built another wall: between aboriginals and russian-speaking. Why?
8 - Ruvy
Callenda,
Presumably, you live in Israel, no? You link to the Samson Blinded NewsBlog, one of my favorite sources for news.
The Soviet Union was really the Russian Empire without the czar. In the Soviet Union, Russian was taught as the "binding language", if I remember the terminology correctly.
When this Russian Empire fell, the natives in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia wanted no part of the imperial Russians who had conquered them and annexed them back in 1940. So they created this wall against the foreign occupiers.
If you were a young Russian-speaking child in 1989, you would not have seen things this way. You would not see yourself as part of a foreign occupation.
But that is how the native Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians saw you. And flying their own flags they wanted no part of you. I'm not saying that to be insulting. It's just the plain truth.
Give the Arabs in Judea and Samaria their own flag, and they will want no part of us. The difference is that we did not come and conquer some ancient Arab empire. We have resettled our own country, and Arabs settled here (in Samaria in particular) because there was work to be had, working for us.
One of my doctors comes from Latvia, by the way. He is great guy.
9 - Silas Kain
While the fall of the Berlin Wall was a great day for Germans and "democracy" we should remind ourselves that the United States is just as fragile today as the USSR 20 years ago. Reagan's "tear down this wall" and the ascendancy of Karol Wojtila to the Vatican are the great photo opps of that time but they are shadowed by the sheer will of the German people. Right now we need the passion of 1980's Germans right here in the good ol' U. S. of A.
10 - Silas Kain
Oh, and thank you Victor. Great job. This is another reader who's eyes welled reading it.
11 - Jim Vivanco
Hey, Vic,
Great article. It made me remember how much I love Freedom...back during the Gulf war in the 90's, I was in Saudi Arabia and I felt a sense of oppression while I was there but I had to travel to Germany for a week to get some equipment fix and, I tell you, it was like coming home! I love Germany and I love Western Freedom...Oh, that all the world were free!
12 - Victor Lana
Thanks for the great comments to all. Yes, we need that passion from the Germans of the 1980s and we need it before it is too late.