[MUSIC PLAYING]
The Berlin Wall is being sealed
once more, as the 17-day pass
agreement ends.
Now there are the
last tearful farewells
as visiting
relatives say goodbye
to East German
residents and prepare
to return to West Berlin.
The Berlin Wall was
possibly the symbol
of the antagonism between
east and west, which
was ever-present
in your daily life.
So seeing that crumble,
as unbelievable
as it was at the
time, it made you
feel that some of the worst
of it was over, maybe.
Maybe naive, knowing
history, but at the time,
it did feel like we were
heading into a brighter future.
I have the memory
of watching people
climb onto the wall on the TV.
It seemed very surreal.
When all these events happened
on the 9th of November,
it was completely
unexpected for everyone.
One of the words,
apparently, that
kept getting repeated
was "Wahnsinn,"
which is, this is insane.
Nobody in Germany
could believe this.
East Germans could come across.
And apparently, the
first thing that happened
was that bananas and
Marlboro cigarettes
got sold out in the immediate
vicinity of East Germany.
One weekend, my friend and I, we
scored some hammers and chisels
and got to a wall section.
This was about five
months afterwards.
And the wall was
completely moth-eaten, was
hammered through.
But we did manage to
find a couple of spots
where there was still
original graffiti, which
was very exciting.
But it was very hard
to hammer out a piece.
In the '60s, traditionally,
asbestos fibres were added
to things like concrete.
And so we assumed
it had asbestos,
so I had it tested before
it went on display.
The results came back, no
asbestos, but animal fibres,
which we assume might have
been something like horsehair,
which acted as
the same kind of--
for the same purpose.
And now that it's 30
years since it came down,
that's a longer time period
than how long the wall
itself was up, which
was about 27 years.
And it was individual
people and crowds
of just average people that came
and made it come crashing down,
not some grandiose
historical event.
If there's anything to take
from the story surrounding
the wall coming down, I think
it's that we can be optimistic
that people power, like
the average person,
can make a huge difference,
which is very important today,
I think.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
