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While we seem to be rebuilding walls in the UK, a timely reminder...
Timothy Garton Ash, in The Guardian
BBC items
The Economist (Eastern Approaches)
Celebration Weekend, MSN
Weekend (7-9) tips
Overview of Celebrations
Erinnerung an den 9. November 1989 in Nairobi/Kenia, Ute Gräfin Baudissin
BBC overview
I was there in East Berlin too, on 7th November and from 9th-12th November, 1989 (in fact I was making an official visit to the GDR, from 4-12 November 1989). My on-the-spot observations of those dramatic days and events, and what it meant to be there, seem rather mundane:
Begrüßungsgeld
The day the Wall came down,
When the deprived poor people
Of the GDR
Were given West Marks
To go across
To see the shops.
They came back bemused
(for forty years they'd lived a lie?)
Proudly bearing
Plastic bags:
I saw LPs, LPs, LPs, LPs.
They’d exchanged their cash
For Johnny Cash.
Back in Prague
Czechs rattled keys
To usher in
Free World CDs.
*****
I was also in Prague, during the "German Exodus", Autumn 1989 (Radio Prague)
My 50-page official report on the GDR visit was rather more detailed and expansive. I visited universities and other institutions in Rostock (November 5), East Berlin (November 7), Potsdam (November 8), Leipzig, West and East Berlin again (November 9th), and I stayed in East Berlin from 9-12 November 1989. An amazing time! Some extracts here
The man who accidentally brought down the Berlin Wall - Guenter Schabowski died 1 November 2015. Ann Leslie discusses his speech which led to the demise of the Berlin Wall. BBC
Gary Keith Griffin
Havel elected President
If I were asked to chose one song for the celebrations, I would choose "Wind of Change" by East- '56
In English
In Hungarian
A great song:
“October 1956.
Blood and anguish in the street of Budapest……
Wind of change-
Where were you when Budapest was burning?
Out of range-
Stupidly, we thought the tide was turning….
June the sixteenth, 1989.
Half a million pay their respects in kind.
They remember, they remember well.”
Words and music P.Dorozsmai, Márkus József and D. Shiels
Hungarian lyrics
Heroes, David Bowie
Heroes, Live
A Great Day for Freedom, Pink Floyd
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