Monday, August 11, 2008
Crossing Borders to Freedom
An original video with inspiring original footage of Bornholmer Strasse, the first major border crossing that finally brought down the Berlin Wall. The video is in German with rough English translations. But the English isn't really needed - the pictures say it all. Bring a box of Kleenex.
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5 comments:
Wasn't the Berlin Wall an infamous moratorium on border crossing?
And why did those people want to leave a workers paradise where all was well and only a few whiners really wanted out anyway?
For the record, I served in Germany during the Cold War. Will never forget seeing the old E. German border, with defensive gadgetry set up to keep people in rather than to deter attack from without.
I have a piece of the Berlin Wall somewhere...it has paint on it from all the graffiti.
BB, as I read your intro to the video, I remembered the comments on the blogs when the WCG report came out recommending a 'holding tank' for dissident orthodox parishes within TEC - 'NO WAY' was the jist of it...and those who had found freedom and peace under CANA, etc. said they would refuse to return to TEC.
God created us to be free, under His good dominion.
His words, "Let MY people go - that they might worship ME."
The collapse of the GDR and the anschluss that followed have taken a tremendous amount of work to balance the two economies of Germany. It is now almost twenty years since those border guards backed-down. At the time I was the valet for the retired Canadian Ambassador to West Germany, who is himself a native Berliner. I recall several occasions when high ranking diplomats visited with him to discuss the events of those times and what they thought might lay ahead for a re-united Germany. I wonder how the Germans, on both sides of the wall think that things have turned out?
By chance my sister was filming a church in Berlin when these events happened. She and the English crew turned their cameras on what was happening and filmed the wall coming down. She brought us back bits each complete with grafitti and asbestos - and one of the most amazing descriptions of joy and emotion I have ever heard.
It is easy to be cynical about politics but freedom is worth the effort.
A woman on the radio talked about revolution
When its already passed her by
Bob Dylan didn't have this to sing about you
You know it feels good to be alive
I was alive and I waited, waited
I was alive and I waited for this
Right here, right now
There is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now
Watching the world wake up from history
I saw the decade in, when it seemed
The world could change at the blink of an eye
And if anything
Then theres your sign... of the times
I was alive and I waited, waited
I was alive and I waited for this
Right here, right now
I was alive and I waited, waited
I was alive and I waited for this
Right here, right now
There is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now
Watching the world wake up from history
I remember this event and soon after with the fall of the Soviet Union in wondrous bewilderment, my world just change, everything I thought and knew was suddenly different. Thinking I was in the 2 mile instant blast area of ground zero for a Pentagon air burst, then suddenly that was less likely. It was a complete inverse of 9/11/01. I'm glad for this reminder of the former!
Thanks BB, also interesting symbolism ;-)
Kevin
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