Thousands of glowing balloons rise into the night sky symbolising the fall of the wall that divided East and West Berlin 25 years ago. Huge crowds gathered on Sunday evening in front of Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate for an open air event held as part of celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of the night the Berlin Wall fell. Some 7,000 helium balloons, many carrying messages of hope, were released from poles that formed a line illuminating a nine-mile stretch of the former border between East and West Berlin. The symbolic act recalled the night of November 9, 1989, when thousands of people from the communist East streamed through gaps in the Berlin Wall to celebrate freedom with their brethren in the West. Earlier in the day, German Chancellor Angela Merkel placed a rose in one of the few remaining sections of the Wall to commemorate those who died trying to escape to the West. The night was capped with a huge firework display that lit up the night sky over the Brandenburg Gate.
