Thirty years to the day after the Berlin Wall started to come down, a piece of that wall remains as a reminder on the base of the Freedom Arches at Nathan Phillips Square.
On top of the chunk of grey concrete is a plaque that reads:
“The citizens of Toronto dedicate these arches to the millions who struggled including Canadians, to gain and defend freedom and to the tens of millions who suffered and died for the lack of it.”
“May all that we do be worthy of them. Only in freedom can the Human Spirit soar. Against the Human drive for freedom nothing can long succeed.”
And there’s a feeling on this anniversary from the people passing by that the fall of the Berlin Wall has led to much of the success we enjoy today.
“It’s opened up the whole world. Look at how much the world has changed in that 30 years. The fall of communism is probably the single biggest thing to happen this century,” Paul McCord told CTV News Toronto.
Monique, who did not provide her last name, is visiting from Ottawa. She remembers how she felt watching the wall fall from her university residence.
“I remember going to the wall, before, in West Berlin, and the crosses where people had tried to cross. I remember looking over and seeing the watchtowers on the east side, and the soldiers looking at us, and just the joy of being able to one day go back to the east because the Soviets had the best part of Berlin,” she said.
She’d visited the wall with her family as a child in 1982 and in 1987, and also went back recently to see the changes. “I went back two years ago, and it was very moving to pass through the gates, the Brandenburg Gates.”
She’s told her children about what the wall represented. And she believes now what she believed then, "It meant the end of separation from family, and the beginning of something new."
"Let's hope that it can only mean tearing down more walls."
