November 9 is known as Germany's fateful day, because a number of historic events took place on this date in history - 11/9/1918 the first German republic was proclaimed after WWI ended and, infamously, 11/9/1938 marked the first date of open aggression against Germany's jews when their synagogues, businesses and homes were systematically destroyed. And, on 11/9/1989, the Wall in Germany came down and East Germans, especially in berlin, poured into the West.
Today, Germans may remember those earlier dates (hopefully we do), but the celebration is all about the fall of the Wall. There are numerous events happening today in Berlin; but the most symbolic and beautiful is a 15 km line of helium-filled lights along a stretch of the former Wall... at 7 pm tonight, those lights will simultaneously be released into the air, as a symbol of borders diappearing and of freedom. I plan to be there, but probably the pics I will take will turn out shitty, so here's a few impressions from yesterday:
Postscript: I don't myself remember very well where I was and what I did on that fateful day. I had no personal or family connection to East Germany and had only once been in East Berlin. I certainly had not expected to see the border between the two Germanys come down in my lifetime, so it was something of a miracle. And the most beautiful thing about this miracle is that no shots were fired, no one was injured, no violence erupted - looking back today, it's easy to see how a border guard might have overreacted somewhere, thereby setting in motion a catastrophic turn of events. Happy to say that didn't happen.
