Comments on: The Wall Fell

By: Joyce Brinton Anderson

Joyce Brinton Anderson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 23:11:34 +0000

The movie is on Amazon, the book I found on Amazon Marketplace.

By: Geoff B.

Geoff B. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:47:14 +0000

We have that movie also. Very good for older kids.

By: JA Benson

JA Benson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:47:43 +0000

I need to find that movie and book for my kids. We need to testify to the younger generation the sacrifices that have been made in the name of freedom. Thanks Joyce again for the the reminder.

By: Joyce Brinton Anderson

Joyce Brinton Anderson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:12:08 +0000

I love Night Crossing. That was the first time I ever new that not everyone in the world was free like me. That movie also really was the spark for my interest in Eastern Europe and communism. The movie is based on a book called ‘With Wind to the West’ by Juergen Petschull. It’s out of print, but worth having in your home library if you can find it.

By: JA Benson

JA Benson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:47:21 +0000

Thank you Joyce for remembering this important milestone. Growing up in the 60′s and 70′s, most of us did not consider the Wall would fall in our lifetime, especially so quickly and without bloodshed. The event was so miraculous and wonderfully shocking. Every so often, the news would report about an escape from behind the iron curtain. There was a Disney movie called _NIght Crossing_ which told of two families who escaped to the west in a balloon.

I think Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul, the Polish Workers Union, the tenacity of the East Germans, and the LDS church’s Temple in East Germany, all of these people with God’s help and prayers were answered; the walls( similar to the Walls of Jericho in the OT) came a tumbling down. Oh happy day!!!

By: Ben Pratt

Ben Pratt — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:59:15 +0000

Thank you very much for this, Joyce. This is the first world political event of which I have personal memory, and I was thinking about it a lot yesterday and trying to remind others who were too young or who have forgotten how the world was before the wall fell. What a miracle.

By: Charlotte

Charlotte — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:31:21 +0000

I was only 12 when the wall felt and I don’t remember a lot, but I do remember a profound gratitude for these people’s new freedom and my own freedoms. Thank you for the beautiful reminder.

By: Malcolm Leal

Malcolm Leal — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:10:27 +0000

I was in East Berlin on that fateful cold November night. I was part of the Cuban diplomatic mission in the “RDA” or Democratic Republic of Germany (In Spanish). For us the fall season of 1989 was, likely, the most disconcerting and incoherent period in communist political history. For all practical purposes, the lights went out. The STASI (East German Secret Police)disappeared, the phones stopped working and the former lines of communication that together with the infamous wall stood for almost half a century just vanished.

I experienced an almost total loss of sense of identity. In one evening, we experienced a total shift in ideological paradigms that came without warning. There was absolutely nothing that could have prepared any of us, on the communist side of the Wall, for that event; socially smooth but a psychological earthquake. Life as I knew it no longer existed. The jundra of ideals, goals and expectations that represented not just a political system but a way of life was just swept away over night. The following year and before the winter snow had melted I had made my way to NYC, freedom and a new life in America. The rest is history. For most people, the world changed while they slept and what was formerly protected by intercontinental ballistic missiles for 40 years was done away with a hammer and chisel in one night.

By: Alpha Echo

Alpha Echo — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:37:05 +0000

I was almost seven years old when the wall fell. We were living in Germany at the time; my father was in the army. I honestly don’t remember much about that day, just that everyone was very excited and I didn’t know why. I have a piece of the wall, it is not much more than a pebble and covered in spray paint on one side. It is a powerful reminder that evil can be defeated.

By: Geoff B.

Geoff B. — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:46:39 +0000

A view from the British on Obama refusing to go to Berlin:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100016197/barack-obama%E2%80%99s-shameful-absence-from-berlin-four-key-reasons-why-the-president-stayed-away/