Sunday 23 November 2014

as the wall came tumbling down we went looking for some freedom

On the night of 9 November, we celebrated the reunion of Berlin. The 25 years that had passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall. All morning I could feel the excitement in the air, the joy, the historic wings of time and place that were fluttering over the city and the sad memories of what people had to go through and the marks that are still there. To the strains of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the presence of guests of honour and eyewitnesses, white balloons would be released into the skies to commemorate the peaceful revolution of 1989 and the fall of the Wall. 

So we headed down to Brandenburg Tor to be a part of a unified Berlin but were greeted by police and fencing saying that we could not pass - it was closed. And so we stood there, with thousand of others, our faces glued to the fences trying to see a glimpse of the grand celebrations that were taking place on the other side of Brandenburg Tor, on the right side - in the West. 

We asked the police and guards what to do, how we could get through, upon they all answered "It is closed, you can´t get in… but try to see if there is an opening somewhere, a hole…" "Is this meant to be symbolic?" we replied. But we found a hole. And in the dark we pushed ourselves forward through thickets and bushes in the company of a dozen others to get to the music, the dancing, the currywurst and the glühwein. And then, then it was really good. 


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