the example of a forgotten holiday

a few days ago i called to germany to catch up with friends and family. one friend greeted me saying something like: oh, you’re calling today, on reunification day [Einheitstag short for Tag der deutschen Einheit].

i didn’t mean to. i had to laugh inside because i still remember writing a previous blog post on living without holidays. that’s exactly what happened. i called on a publicly celebrated german holiday, october 3, which was a saturday this year, without recognizing the historical date. shame on me. am I losing my “germaness”?

so here’s a short tribute to october 3. it commemorates the anniversary of the german reunification in 1990, which happened roughly one year when the berlin wall fell on november 9, 1989. that day of november though is not a public holiday.

here’s why, quoting from Wikipedia English which sums up the history of the day and its complications nicely:

"An alternative choice would have been the day the Berlin Wall came down -- 9 November 1989, which coincided with the anniversary of the proclamation of the German Republic in 1918 and the defeat of Hitler's first coup in 1923. However, 9 November was also the anniversary of the first large-scale Nazi-led pogroms against Jews in 1938 [Kristallnacht], so the day of formal reunion, was chosen instead.

Before reunification, in West Germany the "Day of German Unity" was 17 June, remembering the failed uprising of 1953 in East Germany against the Stalinist government. The revolt was crushed with Soviet aid; the exact number of fatalities is unknown, but estimated at somewhere above 100. In East Germany, the national holiday was 7 October, the "Day of the Republic" [Tag der Republik], commemoratin the foundation of the German Democratic Republic in 1949."

by the way, i spent october 3 at the zoo saying hello to the giant pandas.

website (unfortunately only in german) of official celebration for reunification day 2009 in saarbrücken. the location of this ceremonial act and related entertainment rotates cities each year. Next year the celebration will be in bremen.