One of the biggest things that marked Poland is communism, which followed the Second World War but today, I specifically want to talk about an event that is directly linked with communism, more precisely, the end of it and was the biggest event of the end of the 20th century, the fall of the Berlin wall.
In 1945, at the conference of Yalta, the Allies were reunited to discuss about the future of Germany, and it was decided that the country will be divided in four parts, one for France, one for the United Kingdom, one for the USA and finally one for the USSR. But many years later, because of the difficulty to manage four countries in one, Germany was cut in two, on the West side, the German Federal Republic and on the East side, the German Democratic Republic, this one ruled by the USSR and the communist ideology. Berlin was also divided in two. At first with little surveillance or guarding, but then, due to the number of people moving from East to West Berlin, the GDR decided to erect a 43 km long wall with a 3.6m height. It was a real, but a bad, surprise, few people expected it and the wall was built very quickly, in the night of August 12 to 13, 1961, preventing any way to pass to the other side. The inhabitants of West Berlin called it the wall of shame while those of East Berlin could not even approach it because of the no-man's land surrounding the wall on a width of 100m and hundreds of guards and watchtowers. This wall lasted through the entire communist period and was the true symbol of the 20th century world, divided by the iron curtain, western with American capitalism on one side, Lenin's and then Stalin's communism on the other. The inhabitants of Poland were subjected to the same regime and way of life as the Berliners of the East, restrictions of communications, food, political terror…
So, how did it fall? Receptive to the policy initiated in 1986 by the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, the Hungarian leaders were the first to open the first breach in the "iron curtain." On May 2, 1989, they announced their intention to open their border with Austria. Hundreds of East Germans rushed to Hungary in the hope of crossing to the West. In September, several thousand people fled in this way. In the GDR, opponents of communism demonstrated in broad daylight, to the great displeasure of the government, which was beginning to lose its footing. And on November 7, a million demonstrators in East Berlin led to the collective resignation of the communist government. Faced with the demonstrations, the GDR tried to calm tensions by announcing a list of new decisions by the regime, through the intermediary of the journalist Schabowski, which were supposed to respond to months of massive demonstrations. That same evening, tens of thousands of Berliners flocked to the border and massed near the Wall. Faced with the lack of instructions from superiors, the chief-guard at the wall sent a message to his men: "Open the gate!” Within half an hour, all the other crossing points were opened and thousands of Berliners, on foot or by car, crossed the supposedly impassable Wall in a surreal atmosphere. The crazy night had just begun.
The immensity of this event is complicated to describe, and I think you have to live it to feel it. I was in Berlin during the Christmas holidays, and through the different places and remains of the wall, you can still feel the effervescence of this historical night that marked the 20th century throughout the world, signing the premises of the fall of communism.
- Mathilde Palanque - Poland