The building of and the collapse of the Berlin Wall will always be an important part of Germany’s history. It divided a country for 28 years and had a huge effect on the lives of many German people.

Here is a video from November 1989 documenting the historical collapse of the Berlin Wall. It was recorded on November 10th, one day after the borders between East and West Berlin were opened for the first time in nearly thirty years. After watching the video think about how the German people felt during this historical time. Can you imagine being in the same situation?

Berlin Wall Collapses – 1989

Berlin Wall Collapses from Carly Smith on Vimeo.

The next video shows how the German people commemorated  twenty years since the fall of the Berlin Wall – November 9th 2009. There were many celebrations in Berlin at this time including, as our year 6/7s have seen, the repainting of the East Side Gallery.

To celebrate the fall of the Wall and the coming together of the German people large dominoes, that looked similar to the slabs of concrete that used to make up the Wall, were painted and lined up one after the other. The first domino was pushed which led to the chain reaction of all the dominoes falling down. After watching the video consider: why did they choose to use dominoes to signify the fall of the Wall? What did they mean?

20 Year Anniversary – 2009

20 Year Anniversary from Carly Smith on Vimeo.