November 9th

Two anniversaries:

The first, Kristallnacht (or, more commonly in German, Reichskristallnacht), the night of terror on November 9/10, 1938 — when Jewish synagogues and businesses were torched, windows smashed, and Jewish men rounded up and sent to Dachau. For many such German Jews, this was the turning point when they finally recognized that the persecution they had to this point experienced was not going to fade but only get worse, and began to work seriously on getting out of the country, only to, all too often, discover that it was too late, that there were new bureaucratic obstacles or barriers from other countries.

The second, the fall of the Berlin Wall, 71 years later, late in the night of November 9, 1989, with a night of celebration rather than destruction.

Do you remember this? I was a student, living in the dorms, but, back in those pre-internet days, I got my news via the morning paper, and (though we had followed the East Germans exiting to the West via Hungary in the preceding weeks) was jolted out of bed by the next day’s headline. Then, several years later, I was in Berlin — at the time, large sections of the wall still stood, and people sold little packets that were claimed to be pieces of the wall. (Were they really? No idea — but it seemed like a fun souvenir and I have it packed away in the basement somewhere.)

Of course, I had no idea at the time that I would eventually marry a German and have a stronger connection to the country. But it’s not difficult to get me to be a bit weepy with some footage of that night from YouTube. And it’s somewhat surprising to think that the wall has been down for nearly as many years (24) as it stood in the first place (28 years).

For those of you who grew up during the Cold War (whether the early years with the duck and cover drills, or the Reagan years, watching The Day After and discussing it at school): did you ever imagine that the Soviet Union and the entire Communist bloc would fall? (OK, Russia is more of a dictatorship than a democracy, but it’s certainly not communist.)