Germany is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The news images of people climbing over and breaking up the graffiti-covered concrete wall will stay in my memory forever.
You could feel it in the air that change was coming. I was 20 at the time. Me and two buddies ignored the guards for the first time, jumped on the Wall and started walking backwards and forwards singing old German songs. We jumped down on the other side and I ran straight for my uncle’s house in the Eastern part – I had been there once before, illegally. He wasn’t home so we ran back to the Wall where somebody handed me a hammer and without question I just started pounding away at the Wall. I was so excited that I got exhausted after some time and I gave the hammer to my other mate who started hammering away too. What a night, I will always remember it – so much drinking and singing… It was great to see us as one Germany again.
Felix Heltmann, Berlin, Germany
Berlinermauer
