Many Georgetown undergraduates weren't even born when the Berlin Wall fell on Nov 9, 1989. But they'll get a chance to revisit the historic event by building a replica of the wall, hearing lectures and participating in a speech contest.
The university's
Freedom Without Walls runs from Nov. 6-13, commemorating the 1989 event that effectively ended the Cold War and reunified Germany after 28 years.
"A lot of our texts and discussions tend to revolve around what it means when the wall came down, so we especially want to look at what it means in today's world," says
Astrid Weigert, visiting assistant professor of German.
Weigert says some students may have not been exposed to the sheer heartache caused by the Berlin Wall, which for decades split families on either side of the structure.
"That's why we're starting these events with rebuilding sections of the wall in Red Square," says Weigert. "By having to walk around the replica, students will have a physical reminder of the wall and how it hindered access for millions of people. It helps us start asking, what did it mean to live in East Germany?"
Freedom Without Walls organizers have invited the larger university community to help
build the replica throughout the afternoon of Nov. 6. Builders even get to write graffiti on the wall with spray paint to resemble the real Berlin Wall.
The German embassy offered Georgetown's German department financial and logistical support to put on Freedom Without Walls. Georgetown is one of about 20 universities nationwide staging 20th anniversary commemorative events with the embassy.
"We jumped at the chance, but we also wanted to put our own Georgetown imprint on it," Weigert explains. "It was very important to us that this week also have academic components to it, in addition to all of the fun things planned."
One centerpiece on the academic side is a Nov. 10
speech contest. German studies students will deliver five-minute speeches in German about how the wall falling changed history and still influences the country today. The winner will be eligible to enter a larger competition run through the embassy and a chance to win a trip for two to Berlin.
Other Freedom Without Walls events include a
photo exhibit in the Bunn Intercultural Center; a
lecture by German novelist and screenwriter
Peter Schneider, the Roth Distinguished Writer-in-Residence at Georgetown; and an
address from Washington University humanities professor
Michael Lutzeler about Schneider's work depicting the wall in movies, essays and books.
A separate event run through the BMW Center for German and European Studies has former Georgetown president the
Rev. Leo O'Donovan, S.J., returning to campus to deliver a
lecture about his friend, former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.
"We also have a concluding event geared specifically to our young people --
Berlin Club Night at the German embassy," Weigert adds.
Weigert hopes her German studies students and everyone else who attends Freedom Without Walls will come away with a better understanding of the damage inflicted by the wall and the rebirth of Germany. It's a lesson the professor has spent years learning herself.
"I grew up in West Germany, and for my generation, East Germany just wasn't something that was discussed. We were encouraged not to think about it," Weigert recalls.
Weigert was in the United States when the wall came down, and remembers feeling overwhelmed with emotion watching the events unfold on television.
"I had my own discoveries to make after that -- I didn't know what it would mean for Germany to be one country," she says.
The point of Freedom Without Walls, Weigert adds, is to figure out what that has meant for Germany and the world.
