From the November 2, 2014, Chicago Tribune by Hope M. Harrison.
November 9, 1989, was an amazing day in history for me. Something that I thought would always be there essentially came down with its opening. I'm talking about the Berlin Wall. This also was the death knell of the Soviet Union and to a large degree, Communism. Two other things I thought would always be with us. I was able to get a very small piece of it from friends who went to Germany shortly afterwards. I would pass it around in my classes after that so the kids could touch some real history.
This was always a point in the very real Cold War.
These are some interesting things about the wall that most people don't know:
1. THE BERLIN WALL WAS ONE WALL. In fact, it was two walls separated by up to 160 yards of a death strip with guards (with shoot-to-kill orders), towers, dogs, floodlights, tripwires. There were also over a million mines along the border between East and West Germany.
More than 5,000 East Germans managed to escape despite these obstacles. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, died.
--Cooter
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