Today marks the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Berlin Wall. I remember just looking at the TV in wonder of those East Berliners standing on top of the wall, a place wherethey would have been shot had they done it just 24-hours earlier.
I never thought I'd see this as the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union and fall of Communism.
Some friends of ours who ran the Black Bear Restaurant in Ingleside, Illinois, which featured German food, were returning home for a visit to Berlin and I asked if they would get me a piece of it, figuring this would be a way for my students to actually touch history. They came back with a small bag with a piece of it for $15.
It was a really small piece, but had paint on one flat piece which I figure must have faced the West Berlin side unless it had been painted on after the wall opened.
I understand there are some sections of the wall left in place.
I have also seen sections of the wall at a fort out in Kansas and at Westminister College in Fulton, Missouri, where Winston Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech.
An Important Wall. --Cooter
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