Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, an event that symbolized a beginning to the end of the Cold War, an Elon University professor in Europe at the time reflects on his trip with students to see the massive concrete wall separating the city crumble, and how German residents responded to their newfound freedom.
Sociology professor Tom Arcaro witnessed Western Germans and foreign tourists using whatever tools they possessed to tear down the stronghold three weeks after the wall opened for unfettered passage. Had he not already been in London for a Study Abroad program, Arcaro may never have had the opportunity to participate.
“Elon had been doing a semester in London for just a few years,” said Arcaro, who was the faculty member leading the fall 1989 program. “It was a typical semester and then news came of the Berlin Wall.”
Shortly after the fall on Nov. 9, Arcaro started seeing London tour companies advertising trips to Berlin. He called the international studies administrator with his idea to lead his class of two dozen students to witness history for themselves.
Arcaro received the green light and took his class, along with his 10-year-old son, Zac, to Berlin on Dec. 2, 1989.
“After a bus tour of West Berlin we went directly to Checkpoint Charlie, which was still very functional and very bureaucratic,” said Arcaro. Checkpoint Charlie was the most well known checkpoint during the Cold War that separated East and West Berlin, he said.
Arcaro said the wait was long. His group was required to show passports on several occasions and to purchase Deutsche Marks to enter the east side of Berlin.
“It was cloudy, stark and colorless. The streets were virtually empty,” Arcaro recalls. “There was such a contrast between West and East Berlin.”
After living in a state of oppression for so long, he said, many East Germans still could not fathom their new freedom. “It must have been very bizarre for East Germans to have tourists coming in,” Arcaro said. “People saw us as invaders and didn’t know how to react.”
After returning to West Berlin, Arcaro and his group joined other tourists and Germans at the wall.
“I used a big rock and chisel to knock off pieces of the wall,” said Arcaro. “People were clamoring and whacking away with whatever they had. It was an intense day for the whole group from Elon. It was, in retrospect, quite a historic fieldtrip.”
Arcaro said the initial excitement for the dawn of a new era in Germany had faded by the time he and his group of students arrived. For the newly arrived, however, the anticipation of seeing the wall – and what its fall represented – was worth the trip from London.
“This was a defining moment for us,” said Arcaro. “This was history and we were there.”
– Sarah Costello ‘11