Watching the Wall Fall: My Memory of 1989

We were sitting in our living room. I was too little to know what was happening but political and historical discussions were common and frequent at our home.

With a bottle of red Scanderbeg wine on the table, we continued our regular evening ritual – that is, pour some wine for everyone, have some hors d’oeuvres, turn on the television set to Rai Uno (An Italian TV channel watched by nearly every Albanian during the country’s Stalinist isolation,) and talk about politics.

I was accustomed to hearing politics discussed at home, sometimes in lowered tones so that suspicious characters wouldn’t turn my father in for questioning.  I was also accustomed to being told that whatever was being discussed was to stay at home.  My father was a kind of a political dissident during his whole life in Albania, and politics had become his favorite topic of discussion in the 80’s, particularly post-Hoxha’s (Albania’s Communist dictator) death.  He wanted to leave.  As soon as possible.  He thought of escaping, but I remember him saying that wasn’t an option.  Leaving his family behind, to be persecuted, was out of the question.  He was looking for a legitimate way to escape with family in tow.

He found it that night;  On November 9, 1989.

Not too long after everyone was settled, Rai Uno reported that the great barrier between East and West, the Berlin Wall, was about to fall that night.  I saw my father jump up with excitement like a young school boy. He struck the table and dashed up with enthusiasm I will never forget;  This was the signal he’d been waiting for.  He poured everyone another round of wine.

We stayed up late watching Rai‘s footage of the event, in awe, expectations floating around everybody’s imaginations.

“It’s done,” said my father.  “It’s Done!” exclaimed he with excitement.  “Now watch events take a turn here [in Albania],” said he with great foresight.

There was laughter, hope, happiness in the room.  We all got up and toasted to the free future and went to sleep really late, elated and full of hope.

Over the next few months, my father obsessed about leaving, and the news, until Communism was given its final kick with the execution of Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu on 25 December 1989.

Dad now knew for sure it was all over.  He was now anxiously waiting for laws to gradually change in Albania and for passports to be issued to all Albanians once the “Agitation and Propaganda” law was abolished.  Once that was done, it became easier to leave as a family unit with a tourist Visa.

And so, by October 1990 we were gone.  All of us, to Italy.