Remains of the Berlin Wall, June 2013

November 9, 2013 marks the 24th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

My first visit to Europe in June 2013 brought me to Berlin and face to face with remnants of the wall I’d heard and read about for as long as I can remember. Once an ominous physical and symbolic barrier between East and West Berlin, the wall met its demise with radical political changes in the late 1980s. The East German government announced on November 9, 1989 that its citizens could visit West Berlin and West Germany.

It may sound trite, but I was awestruck standing on the very ground where the infamous wall stood, where so many would-be defectors lost their lives trying to escape their oppressors. Where 5,000 others succeeded in reaching the other side.

I snapped the photo above from atop a double decker tour bus Continue reading →