By Bobbie Kirkhart, Evangelia Kindinger, Lynette Kirschner, Maria Moss, Monica Ortez, Cheryce von Xylander

This week’s installment concludes our series on the fall of the Berlin Wall. Enjoy!

Bobbie Kirkhart, Los Angeles

When I was very young, I imag­ined there was a wall just beyond my view, mak­ing sure I could not ven­ture into the for­bid­den world. It made a strange shape, sur­round­ing all the ter­ri­to­ry I could explore and block­ing every­where I could not. Per­haps it was that I was by far the youngest in my fam­i­ly, so that every­one else was an adult in my eyes and there­fore free. What­ev­er the rea­son, I accept­ed as sim­ple truth that I was banned from a world where every­one else was free to go. As I grew old­er, I real­ized that the wall was a metaphor, but I saw it as no less a real­i­ty in my life.

I was well into my 40s when that changed.

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By Marlena Voigts, Andreas Hübner, Michaela Keck, Christoph Strobel, Roger L. Nichols

Marlena Voigts, Hamburg

Nov. 9, 1989: I was lying in bed when I thought I heard the phone ring. The next morn­ing, there was in fact a mes­sage on my answer­ing machine from about 3 a.m. “Hi Mar­lena! You won’t believe where I am. (Pause) I’m in the West, at my Aunt’s house in West Berlin! It’s just unbelievable!”

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