Not exactly the 9th of November 1989, but a few months later. I was staying for a couple of weeks in East-Berlin in an apartment owned by an East German acquaintance. I remember the street name but not the name of my long lost friend: Grünberger Straße. Things were cheap in the DDR and I bought several books on movie director F. W. Murnau (1888 - 1931) who directed innovative German Expressionist movies like: Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (1922), Der letzte Mann (1924), Faust (1926) and Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931). The rest of my time in Berlin I spent wandering about the dark streets of the Eastern part of town and eating raw Beefsteak Tatar mit Eigelb und Zwiebeln.
Another artist friend from Berlin gave me a little drawing he made. It depicts an old tram in the dim city lights and the text: "Fest Halten!" But nothings stays the same. Every wall will fall, eventually.
This moment was a turning point for Europe. I was happy for all the East Germans I met on my travels in Eastern Europe in the years leading up to this moment. The frustration they felt before November 1989 had been clear to me. Suddenly their world became much larger - literally. In 1990 with the German unification the former DDR became a member of the European Economic Community (EEC), and from 1993 onwards a member of the European Union. In 2004 most Eastern European countries became members to be followed by Bulgaria and Romania in 2007.
