Today is November 9, 2009: thousands of people are getting together on Bornholmer Brücke – that checkpoint that in 1989 was the first to open its gates between the eastern district of Prenzlauer Berg and the western district of Wedding in the center of Berlin.
Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel and the two Nobel Peace Prize winners Michail Gorbatchev and Lech Wałesa have come to this bridge; and so have a great number of people, many of whom suffered persecution, because they sought nothing but freedom and human rights. Among these people is also Wolf Biermann, a famous poet and singer-songwriter, who was expatriated by the GDR government while he was on tour in the Federal Republic in the 1970s.
Joachim Gauck is the head of the so-called Gauck-Behörde. It was set up in 1991 to manage the extensive collection of documents belonging to the state security service of the former East Germany. The Gauck-Behörde also has the task of informing the public about the structure, methods and actions of the Stasi. Joachim Gauck delivers a speech which meets with enthusiastic applause when he reminds the public of the courage of the past: “We went to university in East Germany. In Saxony a thesis was turned in comprising a total of four words: WIR SIND DAS VOLK! – The people, that’s us. These words are the German equivalent to the American slogan “Yes, we can!”
Today is a very special day of celebration for Sr. Juvenalis, Sr. Hannelore, and our convent: on November 26 it will be 17 years that the two sisters moved to Berlin on behalf of the convent, began the first outpatient hospice for people living with AIDS. “Without the historic events of Nov 9th, there would not be Mauritzer Franciscan nuns living in Berlin-Pankow and doing this work”, they say at this historic site, while the croud are cheering again “Gorbi, Gorbi!” They feel it is their duty to come to Bornholmer Brücke today; and some of their fellow workers are with them.
They all feel grateful for the courage of so many East German citizens and politicians who have made the WENDE, the collapse and dissolution of East German totalitarianism, possible.
