Happy Birthday Freedom...

The 9th November 2009 will mark the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. I was 20 when the wall came down, but in spite of the years that have passed, I remember this event vividly...
I wasn't in Berlin when it happened, in fact, I hadn't been to Berlin between the eighties and 2006, when the photos below were taken. I was in Berlin in 1985 and 1986, I was even in East Berlin for a day - I saw the Wall in the flesh so-to-speak and never ever, not in a million years, would I have seriously expected this Wall to come down, not in my lifetime...and if so, then not without bloodshed...
The fact that it did come down and above all how the Berlin Wall came down in the end, took everybody by surprise - not only me - but everyone (including the CIA, the KGB, the MI5 and whatever their names were)...
Not one shot rang out during this remarkable night...it was the night of all nights...it was a magical night, a night that made the impossible, the improbable, the unthinkable come true...we went to the land over the rainbow where 'dreams that you dare to dream really do come true' - I wouldn't have dared to dream that dream before it became reality though...
No shot rang out in a place that was once rightfully called the best protected border on the planet...no shot...although the border guards were armed up to their teeth...although the regime had it all worked out - where to bring the injured, the dead - Tiananmen Square part II, this time in East Berlin - different place, same carnage.
Nonetheless, none of this happened, instead, people were dancing on the Wall...without being shot down! Unthinkable even the day before 11/9...
I still don't understand the workings of said night, but suffice it to say that it was a genuine miracle, no more and certainly no less...
The GDR was going down, but still, no one saw this coming - and dictators have a tendency to hold on to their power for as long as possible, regardless of the price...That night though, the GDR just slipped out of their fingers and maybe for the first time in human history, a people demolished a stone wall with their voices alone "Wir sind das Volk, wir sind ein Volk!" [We are the people, we are one people]...like the trumpets of Jericho in the Old Testament...their presence alone made this Wall, this regime, crumble and fall to their feet.
We were in a state of grace on this chilly 9th November 1989 and we were given a tremendous gift that night...freedom...and something more that maybe I alone can feel in my heart, and maybe it's bullocks, but I believe that this event (perhaps even its date - the 9th of November) carries a deeper meaning...too many improbable events have led up to this, too many things that could have gone terribly wrong went right that night...how lucky can you get? This night was meant to be...it almost seems as if someone was watching over us that night...as if someone somewhere was pulling the strings, whispering into the ears of the soldiers "don't shoot, keep calm, don't shoot..."
I believe that we as a country, as a nation, were forgiven that night - by the ones that perished - they reached out to us that night...and then they let us go...in peace.

In light of this...I was incredibly moved when I saw a Menora in front of the Brandenburg Gate right next to a huge Christmas tree [see photo below] that read 'the Jewish community of Berlin wishes everybody Happy Hanukkah'..."They're back" I remember thinking. Like the birds in the spring, after a long cold winter - it was the winter of our discontent - a winter that lasted too long...
The Jewish 'element' was an integral part of German culture, society and wisdom...Gustav Mahler, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartoldy, Heinrich Heine, Albert Einstein just to name a few...we have lost so much that we have yet to regain. Someone once said that the extermination of the Jews was an act of self-mutilation. And that's just what it was. I am delighted to see that they're back, back to where they belong...always belonged.