Twenty years ago today, the Berlin Wall — a wall dividing a city and its citizens in two — between communist East Berlin and capitalist West Berlin fell. People were allowed to cross freely between East and West Germany.

 

Vanderbilt University was one of the 20 American universities commissioned by the German embassy last November to participate in the national "Freedom Without Walls" project to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the fall.

 

The on-campus project organized the construction of a mock wall and checkpoint between Peabody and main campuses, which various Vanderbilt Visions groups were able to paint and decorate early last week, as a replica of the graffiti on the actual wall. The gray wall stood for a week, from Nov. 1-6.

 

While the Max Kade Center for European and German Studies sponsored the on-campus project and served as a resource for students, the initiative was largely student-led, said junior Jonathan Pitocco, who led the grafitti wall project.

 

"What's strange about this project is that it's not just some organization we want to commemorate the fall of the wall," Pitocco said. "This organization was created for the sole purpose of commemorating the anniversary."

 

The "Freedom Without Walls" campaign was not purely about the wall, however.

 

“The events are designed not only to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, but also to embrace the ideals of freedom in aspects of our lives unrelated to physical walls,” Pitocco said.

 

The project also sponsored four documentary screenings and a panel discussion examining the views on Germany and its relations with other European countries over the last 20 years. The panel featured various experts on the subject, including John Kornblum, former U.S. ambassador to Germany; Victor Ashe, former U.S. ambassador to Poland; and Luc Veron, minister counselor and head of the Political Development section of the delegation to the European commission in Washington, D.C.

 

"The speakers who came in were just fantastic," Pitocco said. "I felt like they really grasped the whole concept of the wall and really effectively delivered their message to the audience."

 

Part of that audience was made up of 50 Tennessee middle and high school students who were brought to campus specifically for the project, for a two-day session on the fall of the Berlin Wall, Pitocco said.

 

"I learned so much. I never really grasped until now how completely sudden this division occurred, this rift in the country," he said. "It was literally overnight."