Berlin Wall Gone not Forgotten

Berlin, separated by a wall, was for years the symbol of a divided world. Nowadays, it’s more likely to be thought of as the hippest party city in Europe.

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin wall, what is left of the former East and West Berlin? Take a bike ride through the city and you’ll find a surprising number of hidden memories of an almost-forgotten era.

On Nov. 9, 1989, inhabitants of the East German Prenzlauer Berg neighbourhood swarmed together at the border crossing in the Bornholmer Strasse to listen to the declaration by government spokesman Günter Schabowski —broadcast live on the West-German television — in which he said that they would be permitted to travel freely through the Federal Republic of Germany.

A journalist asked Schabowski when the freedom of travel would come into effect. “I think, from this moment on,” the official sputtered.

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