On a crisp autumn night inside the Gethsemane Church in East Berlin we linked arms, sang hymns and said prayers. We could see the searchlights through the windows and hear the yelping of police dogs. Armoured personnel carriers had sealed off surrounding streets.
I had joined hundreds of people camped out in opposition to the Communist regime. Protests had started when the authorities blatantly falsified election results that May. Tens of thousands used their summer holidays to flee to the West, taking the long route through the now-open border between Hungary and Austria.
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I had been living and working in Communist East Berlin since the start of that fateful year, 1989, as the Telegraph’s correspondent. …
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