UMSL CAMPUS (KTVI-FOX2now.com) -
Tearing down the Berlin Wall and what that meant to all of us was brought home today at the University of Missouri in St. Louis. The campus joined some 30 colleges and universities nationwide to mark the 20th anniversary of when the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many students who marked the occasion were not old enough to remember the actual event.
UMSL students turned out along with high schools from all over Missouri to remember the wall and hear, many for the first time, the words of Ronald Regan at the Brandenburg Gate: "Mr. Gorbachov. Tear down this wall."
Students rushed through a wall imprinted with the German word for "freedom." They symbolized the East Germans who came in droves back on November 9, 1989.
On student remarked, "It was the end of the Cold War, the beginning of a fully-united Europe, and proof that peaceful change is possible, even in the moments when it seems most unlikely."
The observance impressed Dr. Bernd von Muerchow-Pohl who runs the German Information Center in Washington, D.C. He says concrete souvenirs from the wall are everywhere.
Dr. Bernd von Muerchow-Pohl said, "There are quite a lot of places in the United States have pieces. One is in Fulton, Missouri, for example."
Larry Marsh, who runs UMSL's German Culture Center, says, "The teachers care about it and virtually every German teacher in the country has gone to Berlin at some time and knows exactly what it means."
From here many went to Fulton, home of Churchill's famous "iron curtain" speech, to visit the huge section of the wall there. Westminster College in Fulton joined UMSL as the only two schools in Missouri to celebrate the anniversary.
The Berlin Wall built by communists stood for 28 years. The only reminder now is a series of inlaid bricks that trace its path.
UMSL students turned out along with high schools from all over Missouri to remember the wall and hear, many for the first time, the words of Ronald Regan at the Brandenburg Gate: "Mr. Gorbachov. Tear down this wall."
Students rushed through a wall imprinted with the German word for "freedom." They symbolized the East Germans who came in droves back on November 9, 1989.
On student remarked, "It was the end of the Cold War, the beginning of a fully-united Europe, and proof that peaceful change is possible, even in the moments when it seems most unlikely."
The observance impressed Dr. Bernd von Muerchow-Pohl who runs the German Information Center in Washington, D.C. He says concrete souvenirs from the wall are everywhere.
Dr. Bernd von Muerchow-Pohl said, "There are quite a lot of places in the United States have pieces. One is in Fulton, Missouri, for example."
Larry Marsh, who runs UMSL's German Culture Center, says, "The teachers care about it and virtually every German teacher in the country has gone to Berlin at some time and knows exactly what it means."
From here many went to Fulton, home of Churchill's famous "iron curtain" speech, to visit the huge section of the wall there. Westminster College in Fulton joined UMSL as the only two schools in Missouri to celebrate the anniversary.
The Berlin Wall built by communists stood for 28 years. The only reminder now is a series of inlaid bricks that trace its path.
