19 ago today, people were dancing on the Berlin Wall and not one shot rang out during this remarkable night. It was the night of all nights, a night that made the impossible, the improbable, the unthinkable come true. That night perhaps 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]. And like the trumpets of Jericho in the Old Testament, their mere presence 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. 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.
When I returned to Berlin in 2006, I was incredibly moved to see a Menora in front of the Brandenburg Gate, right next to a huge Christmas tree, 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 had 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. Someone once said that the extermination of the Jews was an act of self-mutilation...and that's just what it was. I am relieved and delighted to see that they're back, back to where they belong.
In memoriam of the victims of the Reichskristallnacht [Night of Broken Glass] of November 9th 1938, and of the victims of totalitarianism and terror.
