How the Falling Of The Berlin Wall Gave Me Life

By Noquel A. Matos

20 Years ago, the Berlin wall was knocked down on November 9, 1989. While it significance it is still debated, popularly we can agree that for Germans it symbolized the unification of their country, and for the rest of the world it signified the beginning of the end of communism and the Cold War. For anyone living at the world at this time, the falling of the Berlin Wall marked a paramount historical moment that carried the promised of freedom into the century to come, and for those who were not alive and did not presence the falling of the wall, the event’s legacy lives on with their generation inhabitant of a free democratic world. Hence, no matter who you are there is some way that this event that happened 20 years ago relates to you.

I like to think it relates to me in an extra-special way. I was born August 17, 1990, nine month after the falling of the wall. I can’t help imagine that my parents conceived me in the mist of this celebration. It’s very much possible. It’s not only the theory of relativity but the place they were when it occurred.

On November 2009 , my parents lived in the great city of New York. My mother had come to the United States on 1986 and my father on 1973 fleeing the repressive government of Joaquin Balaguer. Not Unlike many Latin American countries at the time, Balaguer was the strong man put in power in the Dominican Republic by the United States to ensure it did not become communist. When the Berlin Wall fell, and my parent’s neighbor and the television celebrated for the end of communism, my father celebrated the end of the Cold War. After 16 years of having left his country with fear he could look back and hope to return. I like to think that the happiness he felt on that night brought about my conception. That is how the Berlin Wall gave me life.

Freedom by Accident: Why the Wall was Supposed to Remain

By Sue Gloor

In the wake of the anniversary of perhaps one of the greatest indirect US victories—the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of a communist stronghold in Europe—Mary Elise Sarotte points to the fact that the whole event was never supposed to occur in such a sweeping and symbolic manner.

Sarotte writes in The Washington Post that exactly twenty years after the breakdown of the barrier between East and West Germany, much of the world is still unaware about the specific circumstances surrounding that fateful day.

Apparently, the wall was never supposed to come down that quickly—a period of a few hours was all it took for some raucous and rebellious East Berliners to climb their way to freedom—or even at that point in time.

But the East German Politburo, the executive committee for the communist party, had already decided to pacify its repressed citizens by developing more “lenient” travel standards. It delegated a spokesman to explain the reforms during an international news conference.

The reforms were barely significant at all, and rather merely suggested freedom within a “fine print” context riddled with East Germany’s characteristic regulations. The spokesman, Guenter Schabowski, skimmed the new standards before holding the conference and mistakenly led the journalists present to believe that the wall was about to come down.

The ensuing breaking news stories in West Germany were all that was needed to exacerbate the misunderstanding, and soon the great physical divide was no more. It is strange that in an age where news broadcasts are considered the most trusted form of communication worldwide, we are reminded of how falsely reported news once changed the course of history.

It may be true that the Berlin Wall would have come down sooner rather than later in 1989, but the fact that its actual demise was stimulated by a muddled answer to the press is quite remarkable.