Berlin Wall's fall symbolizes how freedom triumphs

Most walls are built to keep things out, but that was not the case with the Berlin Wall, which was built to keep people in.

In hindsight, as the 20-year anniversary of the wall's fall is marked this week, we can say it was doomed to failure, but that was not so obvious more that four decades ago when construction began on the wall that separated communist East Germany from the democratic West Berlin. It symbolized what was called the Iron Curtain.

The wall was East Germany's answer to a hemorrhaging of its people - millions had fled East Germany and its oppressive totalitarian regime prior to construction of the wall. After the wall was built, the will to escape remained but ability to do so plummeted, especially after construction of a death zone where anyone trying to escape was killed on the spot.

The media in those years often had stories of brave attempts to flee, either by tunneling under the wall or making a suicidal dash across the death zone. Few made it and an estimated 100 to 200 were killed.

As effective as the barrier was, it could not kill the desire to be free or the hatred of the repressive society that had been created in East Germany. Eventually that regime and the communist system collapsed amid civil unrest, and on Nov. 9, 1989 the gates were essentially thrown open.

Many of us remember that day as we watched on television as joyful Germans clambered over the wall and chipping away at it with whatever tools were handy.

The events of that day and the days that followed as the two separated nations merged represented the victory of freedom over repression.

It demonstrated that even a totalitarian society cannot purge the innate desire of people to chart their own destinies.