Jennifer Moody

Saturday, 11 November, 1989

“Sorry for the break in continuity, but there’s something that must be said. I’m 20 years old, on a bus trip to the Cotswolds, England; it’s 9:20 a.m. and the Berlin Wall is coming down.”

I wrote those words in my travel journal 20 years ago. One of the other American students in my exchange group had a little radio and was reporting to us as we rode.

“We knew yesterday there were people being allowed to cross with identity cards alone, and just this morning Pam was saying she was watching the news and at four in the morning, they were tearing a part down, not even waiting for the morning light. It’s Armistice Day, and the Berlin Wall is coming down.

“So much a part of our generation – there was never a time I knew when the Wall did not exist. I knew a man, Joe Statz, who had actually escaped through it. Dads got pictures of it. I remember asking in German class if he thought it would go down in our lifetime (in fact, I was wondering aloud just yesterday that same thing) and he said no.

“As my parents knew where they were when John F. Kennedy was shot, so I’ll know where I’ve been when the Iron Curtain began to come down. East German guards and West German police shook hands through the gap when the first concrete block was lifted, the BBC 1 just said. My kids probably won’t believe me when I tell them I grew up with a wall separating the two, when I tell them Europe used to be divided. I hope they’ll never need to believe it. Happy Armistice Day – something there is that does not love a wall.

“So far there’s only the one gap, but that will expand, without question. It’s amazing to think of all the things that have happened in those 28 years – all the people who have died trying to breach that gap – all the protests, the peace efforts elsewhere in the world, the other wars, and now people can finally cross from East to West Berlin.”

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