Thread by @_anjaheilmann

#BerlinWall30

On this day 30 years ago I was twenty, and a student in East Berlin. I was at a party when we heard the news. Something I thought impossible all my life had happened - the wall was open. /1

We grabbed our beers and went to the checkpoint at the #Tränenpalast (palace of tears) where a big crowd was already waiting to be let through and on the S-Bahn train to West Berlin. And unbelievably, the border guards let us go! /2

When the train crossed the border between East and West the whole train cheered, and tears were shed... Once in West Berlin we made our way to the Brandenburg Gate, just following the huge crowds moving down the ‘Strasse des 17. Juni’… /3

The atmosphere was indescribable. Everyone knew that this was history in the making and that there would be no way back. /4

That night, helped by those around us, my friends and I climbed the wall, that ugly and monstrous symbol of fear, oppression and subjugation. We were free. /5

That day has shaped my whole life. Unthinkable what life would be like if the GDR still existed. /6

Now I’m living in the UK, with dual nationality. And I hope more than anything that the country I chose to make my home will step back from the brink that is Brexit, and will not be putting up walls again. /end

#BerlinWall30

P.S. Thank you for all the kind replies to this thread.

There’s one thing I feel I should add. The wall didn’t just fall - it happened because of the brave dissidents who started a protest movement, the thousands who took to the streets week in week out...

...culminating in the huge demonstration on the 4th of November in Berlin, and the masses who had started fleeing the GDR via Hungary and Czechoslovakia...

...At that time, all this took a massive amount of courage. The regime lost control over the events. It was our ‘peaceful revolution’, but let’s not forget that it could have ended very differently.