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* After the Berlin Wall came down on November 9, 1989, pieces of it scattered around the world.
* These photos show the surprising places the pieces ended up, from the grounds of the Vatican to a bathroom in Las Vegas.
Three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which once separated East Berlin from West Berlin, hundreds of the portions of the barrier stand scattered in countries throughout the world.
In fact, more pieces of it actually reside in other countries than in Germany itself, according to The Guardian.
We've put together a collection of images that show where pieces of the wall stand today and how they look in different countries, from a segment gifted to Nelson Mandela in South Africa to a massive display in Los Angeles.
The Cold War, a global power struggle between dictatorship and democracy, ended in Berlin on November 9, 1989. The course of history, however, was set in motion by decisive events outside the country long before that.
It was the global symbol of the division between East and West, for the battle between communism and capitalism: the Berlin Wall, erected by the dictatorship of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), better known as East Germany, in 1961.
Surrounded by a 155-kilometer-long (96.3-mile-long) guarded border of concrete and barbed wire, citizens in the Berlin's West sector lived in an island of freedom in the middle of the communist GDR. And over the decades, many East Germans looked to the unreachable West in desperate longing, hoping they might one day escape.
WNU Editor: I just started working for the UN at their ICAO division in Montreal in the fall of 1989. I will never forget that time. My Soviet colleagues were all doom and gloom, and they would not talk among themselves on what was happening. At the end of the day I would always rush to the lounge area where the day's newspapers were always hanging around. I found the New York Times coverage of the events mesmerizing and a must read. I personally was very worried on what was happening. I knew that the leadership in Moscow wanted to do something. They were of the same generation as my father .... veterans of the Second World War .... and they did not want reunification to happen. The Chinese crackdown at Tienanmen Square had happened only a few months before, and the same type of response was being debated in Moscow. Fortunately Gorbachev made sure that a Soviet military response did not happen, but I always sense it was a touch and go situation. I also personally wished that I was in Berlin at the time. I knew history was being made, and I wanted to be a part of it. But it was not to be. A few years later I did visit Berlin, standing in a place where people were shot just a few years ago. To say that it was all surreal to me is an understatement. It still is.
Somber, Hopeful Ceremonies Mark 25 Years Since The Berlin Wall Fell -- CNN
(CNN) -- Jumping out of buildings, running through barbed wire, flying makeshift planes and digging secret tunnels -- all desperate measures used by people to flee East Berlin after the wall went up.
Those images and memories flooded back into Germany's collective conscious on Sunday, as the nation celebrated 25 years since the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.
On November 9, 1989, tens of thousands of Germans literally tore it down by hand -- using their fists, pickaxes, sledgehammers and shovels.
Then East Germany's communist government helped, heaving away chunks of it by crane, as its citizens streamed into the West and its one-party oligarchy collapsed.
The Berlin Wall Fell 25 Years Ago -- Washington Post
East Germany tore a city in half when it tried to keep its people from escaping to the West
Imagine that your best friend lives a mile away. You have been pals since first grade. You do everything together: school, soccer games, sleepovers.
One day, men come and put up a barbed-wire fence between your house and your buddy’s. Later, they replace it with a very long, very tall concrete wall. Each slab weighs 6,000 pounds, and many of them are topped with sharp wire.
When they finish, you stare at the giant wall that has split your home town in two. On your side, the wall is ugly but not too scary. On the other side, rattling tanks, soldiers with machine guns and growling dogs keep people from trying to cross the barrier.
The wall stands 12 feet high. Your friend lives on the other side. You can’t see him. And you won’t . . . for the next 28 years!
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