25 Years ago today

I'm sitting here in my living room, watching live coverage out of Berlin.  25 years ago today the border between East and West Berlin was opened, and within days the majority of the wall came down and tonight Germany celebrates (and commemorates).  There are so many people in Berlin tonight that streets leading towards the Bradenburg Gate have been closed--the city is at capacity.  At capacity, yet in all the footage I am seeing, the calmest, most orderly crowd of that size possible: currently watching in near silence (while Beethoven's 9th plays)  as 8000 lit balloons are released, one at a time, by 8000 people all along the route where the wall once stood-- THE symbol of communist control and oppression.

(photo from Bussiness Insider of the lit balloon wall, yesterday)

My kids, now about the age I was when the wall came down, don't quite "get it."  Having never lived in a world in which Berlin, and all of Germany, was divided--it's hard for them to fully imagine just how impossible the idea was to us, until it happened.  I think I am far from alone having been stunned to see that wall crumble and having never seriously believed it could.

On the other hand, I think they understand a bit better than many of their American peers.  Of course, we visited Berlin our first summer here in Germany--I think that is on the ex pat must do list.  Even then, 20 years after the wall came down, there was a noticeable difference between the sides of the city.  Trees are bigger and older in the West, and the architecture is still more barren and utilitarian in the east.  Even as fairly young kids this popped right out to Marika and Rio in 2009 (they look so little, don't they?).  That was their first introduction to the history that is still so strong and vibrant in Berlin and in Germany as a whole.

The longer we've been here, the more remnants of that not to distant past push their way into modern life.  We still pay "solidarity tax" out of our "former Western" Germany paychecks; Rio's school still learns Russian as their third language (a holdover from the early 80s that has never been changed), there is still a wage gap from East to West (much like the gender wage gap in the US), and most of the time, if we meet a German about my age who doesn't speak much English it turns out they were raised in the East--missing out on having English in school as a child.  

I love today.  I love seeing a celebration of people and governments getting it right.  We don't always do that.  Germany certainly didn't in much of the last century (a fact which Germany does not shy away from--in fact Rio'S history class this year focuses almost exclusively on the holocaust and WWII).  Today we continue to often get it wrong around the globe.  As the world contends with the huge threat that is ISIS, the political situation in the Ukraine shows a backwards trend in Russia, schools shootings continue to happen at an alarming rate in the US and Hooligans (really, that's their name!) riot in German cities---it is awesome, powerful and NEEDED to see millions come together to celebrate the victory of good and love and change in the right direction.  It's a good reminder of what we are capable of and what we can do when we put our minds to it.

--Hadley